MEPC Symposium: Iraq, Iran, Israel, and the Eclipse of U.S. Influence

[tequila]

Very interesting symposium at MEPC featuring W. Patrick Lang, Anatol Lieven, Wayne White, and Ken Katzman.

[Stan]

Lang was with DIA in my early DAS days. Fairly smart individual.
Tom may have more on him though.

This symposium will then be a tad interesting.

Lang wrote "Iraqis' Borrowing Could Help American Forces' Response"

FORT MONMOUTH, N.J. -- In 1965, the U.S. Army published a detailed manual on how to build and hide booby traps, complete with detailed diagrams illustrating various means of wiring detonators to explosives, and advising on the best locations for concealing the deadly bombs along roadways and elsewhere.

Two decades later, the Iraqi military issued its troops an Arabic version of the same manual, copying not only the wording but also many of the drawings. Dated March 1987 and stamped "confidential," the manual includes a message from Saddam Hussein, then Iraq's supreme ruler, underscoring the importance of perpetual learning.

The existence of the Iraqi copy highlights the degree to which U.S. military techniques and technology found their way into Hussein's military even as relations between the Iraqi leader and Washington eventually deteriorated into all-out war. With members of Hussein's former military and security groups now powering much of the insurgency in Iraq, U.S. forces find themselves confronting an enemy trained, at least in part, in U.S. military methods.

More details here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...201492_pf.html

[Tom Odom]

Lang was with DIA in my early DAS days. Fairly smart individual.
Tom may have more on him though.

This symposium will then be a tad interesting.

Lang wrote "Iraqis' Borrowing Could Help American Forces' Response"



More details here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...201492_pf.html

Lang was DIO for the Middle East diring Desert Shield and Storm. He was and still is a dynamic guy, sparking either extreme like or dislike. I liked him because as a colonel he spoke his mind versus adhering to a party line. He has over the past 5 years been a vocal critic of the Adminstration's use of intelligence, especially Feith's special intelligence analysis cell under Wolfowitz.

Tom