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Thread: Sassaman Interview

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    Default Sassaman Interview

    I heard an interview with LTC Nathan Sassaman on NPR (you can hear the interview here: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=90950478 it is about 9 minutes in) about his new book. He seemed completely unapologetic and justified his decision to cover up the actions of his subordinates by saying that the environment was very stressful environment and he was forced to make very difficult decisions. He seems to also blame a zero defects culture in the Army. But his main defense in terms of the cover up of the bridge incident is that he did not believe that their actions were criminal and he believed it was his responsibility to protect his men.
    All of these arguments seem like cop-outs to me. Yes, being a battalion commander in Iraq is a very stressful job, but if you do not want to be responsible for your actions in that environment, don't become a battalion commander. I'm sure LTC Sassaman knew going into the job that it would be stressful and he would be forced to make tough decisions and so this is not a defense. He is right in saying that it is unrealistic to expect no mistakes to be made. Tactical, technical, and strategic mistakes are an inevitable part of war, but moral mistakes are inexcusable. And covering up morally wrong actions is not part of protecting subordinates.
    I am curious to hear other people's thoughts on the interview. I would also be very interested to hear from anyone who reads the book: http://www.amazon.com/Warrior-King-B...2342833&sr=8-1.

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    Thanks for the post, Please introduce yourself here and fill out your profile.

    Abu Muqawama had a good review on the book the other day.

    I know quite a few people who were in his BN and BDE. I know quite a few from 1-66AR. None have anything good to say about him.

    Once upon a time CPT Nate Sassaman was the representative for my area for West Point while I was being recruited for soccer. He was the one that told me I wasn't good enough for West Point because, after all, "West Point is, has been, and always will be a football school."

    That year was their last winning season. I though he was an @sshole when I was a senior in high school, and I don't feel any different 13 years later.
    Last edited by RTK; 06-01-2008 at 08:18 PM.
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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Some wag once said "Morals are what others want you to do."

    Lot of truth in that, morality is very much an individual construct so it seems to me I can comment on my own morality but cannot really do so in regard to others. On another plane, a war may necessary or even for a good purpose but that doesn't change the fact that war is essentially in and of itself immoral and a stupid human endeavor so I'm not sure that any talk of morality in warfare is of much use. All that's just my take...

    Allowing for the facts that it's entirely too easy for us to pass judgment on incidents in war even though we know that information flow can be spotty, that reports after the fact are invariably skewed by commission or omission both purposely and inadvertently (and that is particularly true of after action investigations), it really behooves us to be careful in making assessments if we weren't there.

    That, however, does not mean that given reasonable and lengthy coverage of an incident one cannot make some judgments; one can and should -- that's how we learn and avoid future mistakes of our own. Thus, it seems to me that his decisions were really bad from a leadership and from a tactical perspective and so I can and do fault him on those grounds. I can also understand RTKs comment and agree based on the fact that after making dumb decisions, Sassaman tries to justify 'em with public whining. No morality involved.

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    Default An important book, part 1

    This will be two parts, because apparently it is too long for one post

    I know, with this posted in the "Social Sciences, Moral and Religious" folder the focus should be on the morality and ethics of Sassaman's decisions. Nevertheless, after reading 2/3 of the book, Sassaman does raise a number of important points - which can't be cast away because he later made a bad decision or b/c he was mean to you once 20 years ago. Like most memoirs, Sassaman's does a fair amount of pinning the blame for what went wrong on other people - his brigade commander COL (now BG) Fred Rudesheim gets the overwhelming majority of it. Nevertheless, we discount what he has to say to our own detriment.

    1) It occurs to me from reading this book that one of the biggest hurdles in the counterinsurgency debate is our inability to achieve a common understanding of what we mean when we use key terms. For example, what do we mean by the term “winning hearts and minds?” It’s almost become a throwaway term in the current political environment, to the point where we don’t even realize what we mean when we say it. It is no different with Sassaman. On page three, he argues, “Winning hearts and minds, and that sort of thing…had little or nothing to do with the root of the mission, or at least the mission as I saw it. The real mission was this: secure and stabilize the region.” One hundred pages later, however, on page 104, he lays out his battalion’s “game plan” of sorts:

    a) Establish legitimate authority to secure and stabilize the province.

    b) Train the local Iraqi community police forces and Iraqi Security Forces through the use of joint US-Iraqi patrols

    c) Form credible Iraqi institutions of security, politics, economics, law, education, religion and speech

    d) Transfer security and institutions to the total control of the Iraqis

    While discussing the third step, Sassaman writes of the work of his battalion in building and rebuilding hospitals, fire stations, police stations, schools, electrical power distribution systems, roads, bridges, recreation areas and mosques. He criticizes the administration, the Secretary of Defense, the Pentagon, the CPA, etc. for not adequately planning and resourcing this critical phase of the war. He argues, “If we had been serious about winning this war and taking care of Iraq, we would have put the resources in place to rapidly develop and rebuild this war-torn nation…It’s just not acceptable in the twenty-first century to invade other nations on the premise of eliminating a dictator without first demonstrating a commitment to putting the nation back on its feet.”

    If this isn't a desire to “win hearts and minds,” then what is? Furthermore, isn’t the simple act of being able to provide security and stability for a region “winning hearts and minds” in itself? As Bing West noted, during the recent political and military gains in Anbar, “The tribes chose to align with our soldiers because, as one sheik told me, ‘Marines are the strongest tribe.’” But it is interesting to note the examples Sassaman provides that he considered misguided attempts at winning hearts and minds: “It’s…sobering to have one of your men lose a foot to an improvised explosive device because, again, your senior commander decided that driving down the middle of the road backed up traffic for the Iraqis.”

    He raises an interesting point here, and one I think is a major part of our problem, not only in creating the divides in the counterinsurgency debate, but with our national strategic communication plan as well. All too often we’ve decided that we’re going to become popular among Iraqis – or Arab society in general – for things like not causing a traffic jam. Another example is how we as a polity have fretted over the last seven years about the use of the phrase “War on Terror.” The phrase has gone through a number of iterations, including just this week when a high-level official suggested that we ban the phrase so as not to offend. Another example is the recent suggestion that we end the use of the term “jihadists” for Islamic extremists because it may offend moderates and cause them to join the extremists.

    When initiatives like this get so much play in the news as examples of our attempts to “win hearts and minds,” it’s no surprise that some people then view the “winning hearts and minds” approach to counterinsurgency with incredulity. I would argue that it is safe to say that an Iraqi who was not already hostile to our presence is unlikely to join an extremist group simply because the Americans caused a traffic jam. If this were ever to happen, you would have to wonder if that person wasn’t already looking for any excuse to join the insurgents. Likewise, it seems unlikely to me that calling extremists “extremists” is then going to offend moderates so much that they would then actually join those extremists.

    Don’t get me wrong – strategic communication is important – and an area in which there is vast room for improvement. But an effective strategic communication plan is not built top-down with silly initiatives like those mentioned above. They waste time, effort, manpower and resources. When we say we want to “win hearts and minds,” what we should mean are all of those projects Sassaman attempted to initiate in Salah-ad-Din – and others have tried to implement elsewhere in Iraq and Afghanistan. They need to start at the local level where the locals can see commitment put to action. It’s important to note that for all the time we’ve spent trying not to offend Muslims, they’ve had little to no effect on opinion of the United States in the Arab world. Instead, Muslim opinion of the US and the US military skyrocketed in 2004-2005 following the tsunami in Indonesia and in 2005 following the earthquake in Pakistan-administered Kashmir – when the military and other organizations were on the ground engaged in full-scale rescue and relief operations.

    Another example Sassaman gives as to why he thought "winning hearts and minds" was bunk was the 2003 Ramadan ceasefire, and the decision that the US would stop patrolling cities in Iraq, limit patrols to the city outskirts and primary travel routes and halt all offensive operations. As he tells it, "this was a spectacularly disastrous military policy decision - the only way to defeat an insurgency is to live in the city...not only did you lose control, but you also lost the pulse of the overall situation" where the cells were operating, which cities seemed to present the most danger, and what individual targets to attack next...without access to the intelligence gleaned through routine patrols, we had no way of knowing what the enemy was planning." Sassaman also notes that this ceasefire was based on the ever-present (and still present) fantasy that we could turn over control of the counterinsurgency to the Iraqis. In other words, some misguided attempt from Washington, or from the generals, to "win hearts and minds" directly contributed to our inability to conduct sound COIN operations. And if I were to ask just how many hearts and minds we won with the Ramadan cease-fire, what would the answer be?

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    Default An important book, part 2

    (Cont'd)

    2) Sassaman talks about the lack of any coordination between security and reconstruction. The instructions came down to "spend money," but there was no effort to coordinate the work between the civil affairs and combat battalions. Money was given to local officials in league with the insurgents, thereby circumventing any attempt by the combat battalions to use money as a carrot for reining in the insurgents.

    This was reminiscent of the Philippines, 1899-1902. In his book on that war, Brian Linn explains how the initial strategy in the First District, Department of Northern Luzon was, like in Iraq, to "spend money." After a while, however,they discovered that the civil governments were actually controlled by the insurgents, and that the money was supporting the insurgency. Only after months of subsidizing the insurgency did the Army realize security had to be established first, and that money would have to be used as a carrot to get the civic officials to take responsibility for the actions of their townspeople.

    Sassaman argues that in Iraq, we were never serious about security. He repeatedly details how his brigade commander told him that if he never patrolled, his men would not get killed or injured, and would all be able to go home at the end of their tour. This argument, which Sassaman found widely prevalent in Salah ad-Din province, was based on the two arguments that we could win the support of the Iraqis by throwing money at problems, and that we could quickly turn responsibility for the whole mess over to Iraqi security forces/police. As in the Philippines, not only was the money often going right into insurgent coffers - or at least convincing local officials that we weren't really serious about cracking down on support for the insurgents and would send in piles of money either way - but our plan to turn over control of the counterinsurgency to the Iraqis proved to be a disaster too.

    Even though this was part of Sassaman's 4 point strategy that I outlined above, the detail of his experience concedes that it was a failure, (even if he doesn't admit as much). He argues, "The vast majority of the police were dishonest, imcompetent and undisciplined...even with our supervision, the Iraqi police situation improved only modestly, and changes came in fits and starts." He continues, "Over the course of a year, we ultimately replaced the entire police force, but the transformation came at a high cost. It was simply too vast a problem for us to train, educate and motivate new Iraqi police officers while fighting an insurgency amid a simultaneous rebuilding effort. The Iraqi police problem will exist until at least the next generation because the majority of law enforcement officers are motivated by selfishness, greed and fear rather than public service." The ISF, he continues, "suffers from sectarian divisions." He goes on to talk about the bond that was established between those from the ISF and the American soldiers, but has nothing to say about the efficacy of the ISF. Full transfer of security to the Iraqis, he argues, could take twenty-five years or more.

    A major theme I've noticed during the book is how what he says and his experience detailed in the book don't always logically coincide. The confusion over what is meant by "hearts and minds" is one example. His detailed account of the failure of our strategy to turn over control of the counterinsurgency to the Iraqis, yet his claim that such a strategy is necessary to win, is another. Another example is his claim that, above all else, he wanted to show the Iraqis that “we could provide for their security against outside raiding parties.” Some of the ways in which he tried to demonstrate this, however, don’t really seem relevant – and could arguably have increased hostility against the American forces. For example, when teenage boys gave American soldiers the finger, they would be arrested and held until their parents came to get them out of jail. It is unclear, to me at least, how this contributes to the perception that the Americans could protect the people from the insurgents.

    In other words, it seems that where Sassaman is due for criticism, his actions directly contradicted the the counterinsurgency strategy he and his men had laid out for the battalion – or at least the strategy he now says they laid out for the battalion. Of course, theoretical constructs don't always translate cleanly into action on the battlefield. Nevertheless, it is ironic that the theory Sassaman puts forth in the book probably wouldn’t meet with all that much opposition. His own accounts of the battles he fought, and the tactical and operational decisions he made, however, do not always seem to adhere to the strategy. That seemed, to me in reading the book at least, to be his biggest undoing.

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default Interesting points

    Why not go here (LINK)and tell us a little about yourself. You can scroll up to get a feel for what others have said.

    For your consideration, I'd submit that Sassaman's experiences relate to one point in time under one Brigade Commander. There have been dozens of Brigade Commanders there in the six iterations of OIF. Each of those iterations has differed markedly from the others for a number of reasons. Those facts are just offered as a generic thought and have no bearing on your comment which pertain to Sassaman and his point in time.

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    Council Member RTK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by datroy View Post
    Sassaman does raise a number of important points - which can't be cast away because he later made a bad decision or b/c he was mean to you once 20 years ago... Nevertheless, we discount what he has to say to our own detriment.
    Your snide comment didn't go unnoticed. Your inability and failure to introduce yourself in the proper place despite a 1000 word post didn't either. You've had 6 months. Good time to get to it.

    I don't need two posts to say this: Nathan Sassaman is a professional embarrassment to the officer community and the United States Army because he advocated the murder of the very people he was tasked to secure.

    As for the rest of your post, Sassaman writes of 2003 issues with the hindsight of 2008. Ask Nate Sassaman what he did to get the resources he felt he needed to conduct his third key task. If BG Rudesheim was CMO centric, wouldn't that have been easy? In his book he talks about the importance of COPs and living among the people.

    I know the NCOs and Officers in question in that incident. I know 1-8 IN very well - I OC'd that unit. I was stationed at Carson for 6 years while 1-8IN was in the same footprint. I'll tell you this: I had access to the 1-8 IN AAR after their deployment - it said nothing about anything he talks about in his book as being vital. All it talked about was kinetics and the importance of kicking people in the teeth.

    As for his criticism of 1-66AR, I got this from a close friend of mine who was a commander in that unit. "Sassaman continually demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of counterinsurgency operations, in fact demonstrating in the process that he was a part of the problem as opposed to the solution in the early part of the conflict. He encouraged wonton violence by his soldiers, that was completely unfocused in any way. While some of his criticisms may be accurate or well placed (i.e. BN CDR's not being aggressive enough, or going out with the units on mission), his underlying premise that we "failed" is dead wrong, because the forces allocated to the tasks were wrong. We had two tank companies plus two infantry platoons for a city of 180K. How would the good LTC suggest we go about conducting COIN ops with two heavy companies and 10 M114's between them??"

    My opinion of him as a man and officer has less to do with what he said to me long ago than it has to do with the Army values, ethics, morals, and a commander's responsibility to do what is right, all of the time, even when no one (or everyone) is looking. He didn't tell the truth until his own ass was on the line. Additionally he believed that there were acceptable levels of collateral damage.

    I have my students read "Fall of the Warrior King" from the New York Times in 2005. and tell me whether he did the right thing or not. 99.9% of brand new LTs I've tasked with this over a 19 month period believe Nate Sassaman should be incarcerated right now. The only one who though Sassaman did the right thing got chaptered for an unrelated personality disorder.

    He's an unethical POS. Sassaman got off easy and should be in jail, right next to Jack Saville.
    Last edited by RTK; 06-01-2008 at 11:51 PM.
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    RTK - my point was, and is, that whether you liked Sassaman as a person or not doesn't matter. Whether he was a nice guy or not is irrelevant. And yes - maybe his actions on that night in question (and subsequently) disgraced the Army. I'm not trying to restore Sassaman's reputation. I'm not trying to be buddies with him. I've never in my life met the man, and never expect to. I make no apologies for what he did. Read the last two paragraphs of what I wrote and you'll see that I agree with you that what he writes now in 2008 is not necessarily what he followed in 2003. And read the first paragraph of what I wrote and you'll see that I am fully aware that the point of memoirs are to blame everyone else for what happened.

    Here's my point though - what he writes in 2008 might, in and of itself, have some value - not because it exculpates Sassaman, but because it is a reasonable analysis of what we've done wrong in Iraq. The fact that there have been some incredibly silly - and unproductive - attempts to "win hearts and minds" handed down by senior officers and policymakers at the expense of conducting sound COIN operations is in no way Sassaman-specific. The fact that we stunk at coordinating the real "hearts and minds" operations - again, oftentimes at the expense of sound COIN efforts is not something only Sassaman encountered. The argument that it is counterproductive to wed ourselves to the idea that only indigenous forces can conduct COIN - and if they don't exist, by god we'll create them out of thin air so we can hand over control to them - is not discounted because Sassaman disgraced himself. Finally, the argument that we were slow to combat the growing insurgency (or even admitting it was an insurgency) in 2003-2004, in part b/c we figured there was little that Americans could do about it, and we had to wait until the Iraqis were ready to fight it themselves, is still relevant, even if Sassaman is a POS.

    There have been great strides made in COIN theory and practice since the early days of this war, but there still remains a great deal of conventional wisdom that often goes unchallenged. If you can get past personal experiences with Sassaman (of which I have none, and therefore cannot comment) then there is a great deal of valuable insight in this book - even if it is written with 2008 hindsight and was the complete opposite of everything Sassaman did while in Iraq.

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    Council Member Ken White's Avatar
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    Default More interesting points...

    Quote Originally Posted by datroy View Post
    ...The argument that it is counterproductive to wed ourselves to the idea that only indigenous forces can conduct COIN - and if they don't exist, by god we'll create them out of thin air so we can hand over control to them - is not discounted because Sassaman disgraced himself.
    Does this mean that you believe indigenous forces are not necessary?
    Finally, the argument that we were slow to combat the growing insurgency (or even admitting it was an insurgency) in 2003-2004, in part b/c we figured there was little that Americans could do about it, and we had to wait until the Iraqis were ready to fight it themselves, is still relevant, even if Sassaman is a POS.
    Does this contradict the implication in the statement I quoted at the top of this post?
    There have been great strides made in COIN theory and practice since the early days of this war, but there still remains a great deal of conventional wisdom that often goes unchallenged.
    One presumes you have some basis and possibly some examples for that comment? What, specifically, do you have in mind?

    Might I also suggest that there have been virtually no strides in COIN theory in the last six years; admittedly the practice has changed but only by adapting and using principles that pre date our entry into Iraq and that were not followed initially not because they weren't known but due to the fact the Army as a deliberate policy choice had purposely ignored those principles in doctrine and training for almost 30 years.

    Again, let me suggest -- as RTK also did -- you go [urll=http://council.smallwarsjournal.com/showpost.php?p=48798&postcount=624] here (LINK)[/url] and introduce yourself.
    Last edited by Ken White; 06-02-2008 at 03:40 PM. Reason: Typo, correct link

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    Council Member RTK's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by datroy View Post
    RTK - my point was, and is, that whether you liked Sassaman as a person or not doesn't matter. Whether he was a nice guy or not is irrelevant. And yes - maybe his actions on that night in question (and subsequently) disgraced the Army.
    First off, in full disclosure, I read the book.

    Your thesis statement is, like Sassaman, a lot of flash and no bang. Whether I like him or not does not matter, true; but the fact that I have had interactions with him must count for something - last I checked it's easier to get an assessment of the whole person through interaction, not through drive-by assessments with no base of reference. What is your base of reference related to these matters, Datroy?

    Sassaman's character, displayed during a time of duress, allows me to discredit or take with skepticism anything he says. Perhaps your moral compass allows you differently, but when someone proves to me they are ethically bankrupt, it tends to contaminate all future interactions. For example, take this from an April 2004 CNN embedded opportunity:

    Soldier: Suck my ass bitch OK? Say OK. Stick my foot in your ass that's what I want to do.

    That was a soldier addressing a detainee.

    Another told us he wanted the prisoners to try to escape so he could shoot them.

    Sassaman acknowledged detainee security was inadequate. But he is acutely aware of the stress on his men.
    Excuse making is a pattern for Sassaman. Don't argue for a minute that Sassaman didn't know that attitude prevailed in his unit. That argument would only prove Sassaman was either complicit or completely out of touch as a commander. In my unit those two Soldiers would have received, at the bare minimum, a field grade Article 15 for violations of UCMJ elevated to the Regimental level. How about in your unit, Datroy?

    You cannot seperate his ethics from what complaints he has on how COIN was conducted in 2003, regardless of whether you or I had interactions with him - that's immaterial. Did he lie about his Soldiers' participation in the murder of an Iraqi civilian? Did he If the answer is yes, then, at least where I come from, that makes him an accessory to murder and someone whose opinion I do not value. Where does your moral compass point, Datroy?

    Lastly, in the same flavor as Sanchez' book, Sassaman brings nothing new to the table. We sucked at COIN in 2003. It's been well documented through articles, documentaries, and books, many of which many people in SWJ have been a part of. He gives no suggestion that hasn't been talked about yet, other than security is the first priority of work and that kinetics win (Which is not in and of itself correct). Hell, every basic trainee in the Army is instilled that during OSUT, now.

    What was the point of his book, other than trying to salvage an unsalvagable reputation?

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    So we know where you're coming from, please introduce yourself here and update your profile. You've been asked 4 times now in this thread and been sent PMs requesting the same. Knowing bckground lends credibility to your position.
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    Council Member RTK's Avatar
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    Default Anyone in the Springs

    And can go to this tomorrow?
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    Sorry for the late reply - work and power outages prevented me from answering sooner.

    RTK - I defer to you on Sassaman's character. As I mentioned, I have no basis for assessment. However, you said:

    Sassaman's character, displayed during a time of duress, allows me to discredit or take with skepticism anything he says. Perhaps your moral compass allows you differently, but when someone proves to me they are ethically bankrupt, it tends to contaminate all future interactions.
    Despite your continued questioning of my moral compass (and though I appreciate your concern, you don't need to worry about my sense of morality - I'll take care of that on my own), history (including American history) is full of unsavory characters who have nevertheless contributed tremendously to our understanding of certain issues. You may argue that Sassaman is saying nothing new, which is fine, but what he writes about here is not discredited b/c of any character issues he might have - at least not in my book.

    But as for your argument that it's nothing new, maybe not - yet we continue to waste our time and resources playing around with terminology thinking that it's all of a sudden going to matter in winning over non-extremist Muslims to our side compared to our efforts on the ground. And Ken White - regarding your questions on the use of indigenous forces (I hope a long post doesn't get me in trouble again):
    Does this mean that you believe indigenous forces are not necessary?
    Not at all - there is no doubt that using indigenous forces can be hugely advantageous in counterinsurgency. In our successful counterinsurgencies, for example Philippines, we used local forces to our benefit. The key difference, however, was that we didn’t dedicate huge amounts of resources to organize and train the force we wanted in the long term in order to handle the short-term fight. Instead, we used the indigenous forces that were available to use, such as the Macabebe and Ilocano scouts, and we built up sophisticated intelligence networks using money and other incentives based on the thinking (correctly, I believe) that the local populations would prefer security and essential services more than a warm, fuzzy feeling from having their own forces fighting (even if they were unable to provide that security). The value of efficacy really should not be underestimated. Our previous counterinsurgency strategy focused heavily on training LSF to fight the insurgents ("as the Iraqis stand up, we'll stand down"), and for all the good of the new doctrine, I would argue that it continues to place too much emphasis on fighting the insurgency through LSF.

    In FM 3-24, there is an entire chapter dedicated to organizing and training LSF. Section 6-1 argues, “Success in counterinsurgency operations requires establishing a legitimate government supported by the people and able to address the fundamental causes that insurgents use to gain support. Achieving these goals requires the host nation to defeat insurgents or render them irrelevant, uphold the rule of law and provide a basic level of essential services and security for the populace. Key to all these tasks is developing an effective host-nation security force.”

    Later, it goes on to say: “U.S. combat operations are secondary to enabling the host nation’s ability to provide for its own security.” Nowhere in the chapter on training host nation forces does it explain the rationale behind these statements. Of course, this is doctrine, so it's about action, not theoretical navel-gazing, but before we dedicate a large number of the best and brightest of our counterinsurgents (“Commanders must assign the best qualified Soldiers and Marines to training and advisory missions.”) to training LSF and take their focus, even if just partially, off of defeating or rendering insurgents irrelevant, more focus paid to the "why" wouldn’t hurt.

    The field manual argues that three things have to be done to achieve success at counterinsurgency: defeat insurgents or render them irrelevant, uphold the rule of law, and provide a basic level of essential services and security for the populace. No explanation is given, however, as to how a recently trained force is supposed to take on more and more of these responsibilities over time….and succeed. In the meantime, the US is devoting such a large number of valuable resources to create these forces out of nothing because it supposedly brings “legitimacy.” As the American military has proven in the past, providing the people with security, services and a fair legal system – and taking carefully thought out actions to show that we had no imperial designs on their land - brings a great deal of its own legitimacy. Meanwhile, an indigenous government – even one democratically elected – that is, at least in part, corrupt, ineffective and made up of groups trying to kill each other, will likely squander any legitimacy it might have received simply from being indigenous. (This reminds me of the assumption made during the post WWI and post World War II decolonization eras that indigenous rule automatically meant democratic or legitimate rule.)

    I also think when you dedicate the resources (both in quality and quantity) that are devoted to training LSF, you leave these forces somewhat more open to attack by the insurgency than if they had been out in constant patrols, living in the towns they were protecting, gaining intelligence, gauging insurgent activity and readying themselves for fighting. (Assigning them to train and advise missions, additionally, takes away from the number of troops actively focused exclusively on the insurgency). As a result, it is at least somewhat easier for insurgents to carry out the attacks that are so spectacular, that in the era of 24-hour news, a low casualty rate, in the end, is irrelevant. Regardless of what the reality is, these attacks give the impression that the US is losing. This makes the American public all the more opposed to our continued presence, and the issue gets thrown into the political arena. Even the politicians that had previously supported the war begin to turn, be it out of principle or political expediency. The historical record suggests that withdrawal of forces will soon follow. The result, historically, has been to declare the LSF adequately trained, and turn over control of the counterinsurgency, no matter what the reality may be. This course of events has always ended poorly – both for the host nation and for the US, which more often than not would, before long, find itself back in the country. Section 6-59 of FM 3-24 states that the US should train to standards, not to time. Unfortunately, given the political reality that usually arises at home, the historical record suggests that this might be easier said than done.

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    Default An Example

    At the risk of getting into trouble for posting too much again, for anyone interested, below is just an example I wrote elsewhere of my argument of how training LSF has usually played out for the US. (I should add, my argument does not apply to cases where we are simply advising a legitimate government and its military - ie, Colombia, present-day Philippines, El Salvador, etc - but cases where there is no government or government security force, either because we overthrew the regime, or because it collapsed. In other words, different types of COIN warrant very different responses)

    But take the example of the Dominican Republic 1916-1924. The initial strategy of the marines was insurgent-focused rather than population focused, and as such, by 1921, the marines had hit an impasse and become demoralized. They would raid the houses of suspected insurgents, only to find the insurgents never existed. They had little presence among the population, giving the insurgents control of the countryside, villages and towns, and, by extension, control of much of the trade and treasuries within those towns. The marines also patrolled only during the day, giving the insurgents free reign over the terrain at night. In other words, the marines were losing.

    Only in late 1921 did the marines change tactics. They created roving and fixed-site patrols, and began operating at night in as many villages as possible. They included a Spanish-speaking marine in each patrol. They also instituted a cordoning approach, whereby large areas were closed off to prevent insurgents from slipping back into the crowd following an attack. Then, in 1922 they began building intelligence networks within each of the towns so they could get inside knowledge of their respective AORs. (Additionally, the military offered a general amnesty which would probably be politically impossible today - perhaps a unintended byproduct of 24/7 news coverage.)

    Meanwhile, very little the US did on the political/government side - or in training LSF - seemed to help. If anything, it made things worse. The US had been desperate to find a local politician that it could install as President to avoid having to govern the country itself. When it couldn't find anyone, it very reluctantly established a military government. The Dominican people, including the insurgents, therefore understood that the United States had no interest in governing the country, and was looking to turn control over to an elected Dominican government as quickly as possible. The record of the military government supported the “deep reluctance” with which the United States implemented a military government. It had very few clearly stated goals for the country and little in the way of thought-out policies or programs. Any services provided to the people came from those marines protecting their towns. The State Department, which interestingly enough had de facto control over the military government, told the government not “to effect any alterations of the law of the Dominican Republic other than are immediately necessary for the best interests of that country.” None of the Americans ever even received any king of guidance on what the government was trying to accomplish. While I suppose this was better than having a corrupt and ineffective indigenous government, this situation did nothing to help the American mission. If anything this reluctance, along with the declining political will to stay in the country following continued attacks on the marines that came from not paying more attention to training LSF rather than the insurgency prior to 1921, gave the insurgents further motivation to attack in the hopes of driving out the Americans.

    Nor did training LSF do much to help - and it actually wound up hurting the US in the long term. Although an early goal of the military government had been to organize and train the Guardia, and although it had assigned the best in its ranks to train these forces, the value of the Guardia “as a military force was nil,” and it “played a marginal role in the occupation, supplementing marine efforts in what officials believed were the least critical tasks.” This was not because the marines or the Guardia forces were incompetent, but because it was simply too much to expect the Guardia forces to be organized, trained, and successfully defeat the insurgents in such a short period of time. Think of the difficulty the marines - steeped in counterinsurgency experience at the time - had themselves in fighting successive counterinsurgency campaigns, or of the difficulty the British - again, with massive counterinsurgency experience - have had over the last century. It is wishful thinking to expect the newly constituted and trained LSF to be able to defeat the insurgency when the British and/or Americans can't - even if they did have local knowledge of the terrain and people. Even then, the military had access to this information on the terrain and people through its intelligence network - the LSF were actually not terribly helpful in this regard. In the Dominican Republic, while the forces weren't able enough to take on the insurgency, they did eventually turn out to be able enough to overthrow the government and install their leader in power for the next three decades.

    In other words, not only did the LSF not help the US in the Dominican Republic, they actually turned out to create a whole new set of headaches for the US a generation later. Of course, Iraq and Afghanistan in 2008 are not the Dominican Republic in 1920. But the entire history of American experience in COIN suggests that when the US immediately creates and trains LSF to take on more and more of the fight, they become, at best, not terribly helpful but relatively benign and, at worst, they serve as a distraction for the US and/or create a whole new set of problems down the road.

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    Default OK, Datroy, I'll bite.

    What exactly are you proposing as an alternative to helping local forces secure themselves?

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    Datroy,

    Good summation of training "LSF" as you call it. I have lived in, in OIF 1 and OIF 05-07. Over the four year span I watched a massive evolution in competency (zilch in OIF 1, to "good" by OIF 05-07).

    You seem to argue the most competent force (ours) should do COIN instead of focusing on training HN. However, this doesn't give you an "exit" down the road. So like Old Eagle, what do you propose - permanent occupation? And are we really as good as we think we are?

    I think there's a mid-ground to your argument. Developing HN capacity takes time, in which the occupier must provide security. Over time one replaces the other. I agree, standing up forces rapidly and handing off without sufficent preparation invites disaster (witness ICDC performance in 2004 Fallujah I and Sadr rebellion), but contrast that with ISF performance in Tal Afar (2005-present), Ramadi, Baghdad, Basra, and most recently Sadr City. We've come a long way.

    BTW, no post gets you "in trouble" as long as you can base your assertions with logical argument. RTK wasn't trying to shoot you down as much as point out that LTC Sassman's motives, character, and points must be taken into account before drawing too many lessons from his experience. Besides, tactics in 2003 Iraq has about as much relevance to 2008 Iraq as WWII. And his whining that if only he had been able to use MORE force is simply silly.
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    Council Member Abu Suleyman's Avatar
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    Default It's easy to pick on someone in cyberspace

    I don't need two posts to say this: Nathan Sassaman is a professional embarrassment to the officer community and the United States Army because he advocated the murder of the very people he was tasked to secure.
    This is my third try at a post, and hopefully my least emotional. Thank goodness for delete keys.

    I knew Nate Sassaman, and was in his battalion, although not during the deployment.

    He has been unfairly characterized. His quotes, as he conveyed them, have been manipulated by those who opposed the war to portray a man who was full of hatred for Iraqi's, and from there generalize to all soldiers, but nothing could be further from the truth. He was unwittingly complicit in this, aided by his sense of the dramatic (he liked to talk in absolutes), and his personal story. (The quarterback who went on to be the warrior, etc.)

    He is probably the most quoted and filmed battalion commander of the whole war, and that bears remembering when passing judgement on the whole battalion. If we filmed any battalion as much as that one, and then parsed it down to a few clips I bet we could make them all out to be a bunch of hate mongers, too. Nate had great relationships with the majority of the Iraqi's he worked with. With a few notable exeptions, when we returned to the same AO a year and a half later, all the leadership asked after him, and some were even writing him in the States. What no report I have ever seen mentions is that in the City of Balad there is a monument that the Iraqi's built to him and his battalion. Another thing no report mentions is that the Samarra incident occured in an out of sector mission, where his relationships with the locals and many of the factors of COIN were not in play. Basically, Sassaman's battalion was called in to help another battalion who had been kicked out of Samarra by the insurgency, and the city was almost completely uncontrolled.

    I haven't read his memoirs yet. Time does not permit, and I have already heard the story from his perspective anyway. However, he understood the way that Iraqi's worked better than anyone I knew. He read voraciously about the Middle East, with a fondness for Thomas Friedman. Moreover, as was stated earlier, war is a fundamentally stupid, and basically immoral action, even when waged for a greater higher purpose, and Nate understood that. He tried to make the best of a bad situation for everyone. Indeed, his 'crime' was that he was trying to mitigate the effects of a poor decision on the part of Jack Saville. (Also worth noting, even in Iraq it was widely believed, but especially by Nate and his staff, that neither of the two men died. Also, at the time 'alternate deterence' was preferable to detention in enforcing curfew. So that from Nate's perspective he wasn't covering a crime, he was just trying to keep Jack from being punished for overzealous, and frankly poor, implementation of a division policy.) He equally tried to mitigate the effects on the Iraqi's by instituting expansive reconstruction projects, and, frankly establishing security as quickly as possible. He believed firmly in short term pain for long term gain, which in retrospect, was the right thing to do.

    It is popular to read accounts from NYT Magazine and pass judgement. But much as they would like to believe to the contrary NYT is not a reliable, nor neutral arbiter, much less the magazine. Also, knowing the players as I do, I read the account, and percieve it totally differently. The words of friends ring true, and carry different meaning to me, I guess.

    My last word is this: Don't hasten to judge. Many have been unfairly tried in the court of public opinion only to be acquited by the halls of justice. If a full and true accounting is ever to be given (which is unlikely) I have no doubt that Nate Sassaman will be remembered not as a villain, but as a tragic figure who overestimated his own abilities and was caught in the machine of war. Not all of the casualties are physical.

    I have just read Abu Muquwama's review (I know I should have read it first), and I have to add this bit: It seems that Nate has become a bit more strident in his views. I don't know that I would agree with him. Nevertheless, I agree with Abu Muquwama that this is a tone that one saw a great deal from officers in post-Vietnam, and more so (though less current) in post-U.S. Civil War and Gemany post-WWI. I hope that he hasn't personally engaged on the slide that destroyed Johnstons life.
    Last edited by Abu Suleyman; 06-16-2008 at 03:06 PM. Reason: Read Abu Muquwama
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    Default Sassaman's worst error

    My principle issue with Sassaman is his role in the Samarra bridge incident. His tactics, strategy, and general approach to COIN has its merits and drawbacks. My admittedly limited knowledge of the intimate details of his BN's operations leads me to believe that his approach was wrong-headed, but I don't think it was egregiously or intentionally immoral.
    But I think he was unequivocally wrong in encouraging (or instructing?) his subordinates to lie about the bridge incident. It is bad practice in COIN to not admit openly and fully to mistakes made, and more importantly, it flies in the face of the Army values of honor and integrity. Sassaman should have at bare minimum instructed his men to tell the truth, and really should have protected his subordinates not by lying for them, but by taking more responsibility himself. I think his failure does show a profound lack of morality and ethics and I think he does deserve to be punished for those failings.

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    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman View Post
    Another thing no report mentions is that the Samarra incident occured in an out of sector mission, where his relationships with the locals and many of the factors of COIN were not in play. Basically, Sassaman's battalion was called in to help another battalion who had been kicked out of Samarra by the insurgency, and the city was almost completely uncontrolled.
    First, whether it was in sector or out of sector is irrelevant. Being out of sector doesn't permit one to order detainees to walk the plank. However, the fact is that it was in sector, and it was part of a COIN operation. The incident in question happened the day right after my battalion had turned over the eastern half of Samarra back to 4ID, signaling an end to one phase of the operation and transition into the phase where CA was going to institute a whole bunch of "high vis, quick impact" projects. Sounds an awful lot like trying to win hearts and minds to me. Furthermore, there had been very little contact in the preceding two weeks, so it wasn't like the incident occured in the aftermath of an intense action with loads of combat stress.

    Quote Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman
    Moreover, as was stated earlier, war is a fundamentally stupid, and basically immoral action, even when waged for a greater higher purpose, and Nate understood that. He tried to make the best of a bad situation for everyone. Indeed, his 'crime' was that he was trying to mitigate the effects of a poor decision on the part of Jack Saville. (Also worth noting, even in Iraq it was widely believed, but especially by Nate and his staff, that neither of the two men died. Also, at the time 'alternate deterence' was preferable to detention in enforcing curfew. So that from Nate's perspective he wasn't covering a crime, he was just trying to keep Jack from being punished for overzealous, and frankly poor, implementation of a division policy.) He equally tried to mitigate the effects on the Iraqi's by instituting expansive reconstruction projects, and, frankly establishing security as quickly as possible. He believed firmly in short term pain for long term gain, which in retrospect, was the right thing to do.
    Actually, there's a long, historical lineage on just war theory, and there are the two separate concepts of both the justness of war and justness in war that serve as the foundation for a moral treatment of just war theory. LTC Sassaman should have studied this as a cadet, just as LT Saville did. The "poor decision" made by Saville was a crime, as indicated by the decision handed down in the halls of Army justice. Whether "alternate deterrence" was really the preferred method or not is a red herring, as the legal orders were to detain, not to walk the plank. The fact that the detainees had to be forced at gunpoint to jump from the bridge indicates that it wasn't their preferred method (it is worth mentioning that the soldiers on the ground made the decision that the two weren't insurgents since they released them until they were ordered by LT Saville to keep them detained).

    LTC Sassaman obstructed justice and his statements, both in his CID statement that is quoted in his book and in other statements in the book, provide the proof. Why then MG Odierno pursued non-judicial punishment instead of court-martial proceedings was his call, but LTC Sassaman's statements are pretty clear on the matter: he instructed CPT Cunningham et al not to mention anything about water.

    Quote Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman
    It is popular to read accounts from NYT Magazine and pass judgement. But much as they would like to believe to the contrary NYT is not a reliable, nor neutral arbiter, much less the magazine. Also, knowing the players as I do, I read the account, and percieve it totally differently. The words of friends ring true, and carry different meaning to me, I guess.
    What a wide brushstroke there - the NYT is trash? Some of the best reporting out of Iraq has come from NYT reporters (and there has been some poor reporting as well). In this case, Dexter Filkins, the author of "The Fall of the Warrior King" from NYT Magazine back in 2005, is a well respected journalist. At least, LTC Sassaman said in his memoirs that he was happy to have participated in the interviews for the article and was pleased because it was a fair article. I think that that serves as an endorsement to use that particular article to pass judgement.

    Quote Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman
    My last word is this: Don't hasten to judge. Many have been unfairly tried in the court of public opinion only to be acquited by the halls of justice. If a full and true accounting is ever to be given (which is unlikely) I have no doubt that Nate Sassaman will be remembered not as a villain, but as a tragic figure who overestimated his own abilities and was caught in the machine of war. Not all of the casualties are physical.
    He made the decision to compromise moral-ethical decision making by obstructing justice out of a misguided sense of loyalty. It is clear that he was loyal to his soldiers and for this, earned their respect. But loyalty is much more than just loyalty to one's soldiers. It includes loyalty to the Army and to the Constitution. He abdicated his responsibilities on this front, and this is what he will be remembered for - a case study from which to learn.
    Last edited by Shek; 06-19-2008 at 01:17 AM.

  19. #19
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shek View Post
    In this case, Dexter Filkins, the author of "The Fall of the Warrior King" from NYT Magazine back in 2005, is a well respected journalist. At least, LTC Sassaman said in his memoirs that he was happy to have participated in the interviews for the article and was pleased because it was a fair article. I think that that serves as an endorsement to use that particular article to pass judgement.
    Actually, I would agree that it is a good article. Moreover, I would not equivocate at all that Jack's conduct and judgement was poor, and probably criminal. Insofar as he did go to jail I would have to say that is a big checkmark for the criminal. Additionally, concealing information and hindering an investigation, I am sure is criminal. I am not defending any of that.

    All of that notwithstanding, the article is limited in scope, where as the nature of a man, or a woman, is not. The moments in the article are just slices of time out of a mans career, and life. A few bad, and even criminal decisions, do not automatically turn someone into Satan incarnate. I find it amazing that people will advocate "seeing things from the terrorists perspective" but will forget to look through our own soldiers eyes. That is a real shame.

    It seems that in an effort to justify ourselves, and our actions, and defend the just war, we are willing to abandon anyone who makes mistakes. I would not try to justify Nate in his decisions, and I was not trying to, but he is not some irredeemable goblin, nor an embarassment to the officer corps. He is just human, like all of us. He made many, many decisions in Iraq, and some people want to condemn him for his bad ones, while forgetting his good ones. You can condemn the decisions without condemning the man. More importantly, I believe we should be willing to forgive mistakes, for someone who did so much good, at least in the long run. I am saying that I believe even with the Samarra incident Nate Sassaman's time in Iraq was a net positive for the Iraqis.

    However, I suppose this is a good personal lesson, and one that I have taken to heart. Don't stick a finger in old wounds for no good reason. I highly doubt that we would be here talking about this if Nate hadn't written a book, which I do concur adds nothing to the debate. In the long run, I doubt that this will even rate as a footnote to the history of the Iraq conflict.
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    Quote Originally Posted by Abu Suleyman View Post
    All of that notwithstanding, the article is limited in scope, where as the nature of a man, or a woman, is not. The moments in the article are just slices of time out of a mans career, and life. A few bad, and even criminal decisions, do not automatically turn someone into Satan incarnate. I find it amazing that people will advocate "seeing things from the terrorists perspective" but will forget to look through our own soldiers eyes. That is a real shame.

    It seems that in an effort to justify ourselves, and our actions, and defend the just war, we are willing to abandon anyone who makes mistakes. I would not try to justify Nate in his decisions, and I was not trying to, but he is not some irredeemable goblin, nor an embarassment to the officer corps. He is just human, like all of us. He made many, many decisions in Iraq, and some people want to condemn him for his bad ones, while forgetting his good ones. You can condemn the decisions without condemning the man. More importantly, I believe we should be willing to forgive mistakes, for someone who did so much good, at least in the long run. I am saying that I believe even with the Samarra incident Nate Sassaman's time in Iraq was a net positive for the Iraqis.
    I think most folks are fully willing to underwrite mistakes, provided that the person learns from them. However, I think there are two reasons that people don't have much empathy for his actions. First, it involves a moral-ethical choice, not a tactical choice. After 19 years in the Army, one should have inculcated and fully understood the values of the Army - if that's not enough time, then there shouldn't be a place for you in the Army. Secondly, LTC Sassaman appears not to have learned from the mistake - while he accepts responsibility, he appears unapologetic about the decision, even stating at one point in his memoirs that if he had known that there was an ongoing criminal investigation that his actions to cover up the incident would have been different.

    "[T]here had been no reason for me to believe there had been an ongoing criminal investigation when I had asked the company commander and platoon leader to not say anything to anyone about the water." -page 269
    That's not the statement of someone doing the right thing, essentially, "if I had known that I couldn't have covered it up, I wouldn't have tried."

    You can contrast this behavior to LTC West, who allowed his men to beat a detainee and then fired the pistol past his head. Yet, it didn't take a criminal investigation for him to acknowledge his mistake. He called his commander that very same night and then acknowledged his mistake to his leaders the very next day and told them that his behavior (both firing the pistol and allowing the beating of a detainee) was in violation of Army Values, policies, and regulations.

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