Have no delight to pass away the time,
Unless to spy my shadow in the sun
…
As I am subtle, false & treacherous,
( R•III 1.2.25, 38 )
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I, in this weak piping time of peace, Have no delight to pass away the time, Unless to spy my shadow in the sun … As I am subtle, false & treacherous, ( R•III 1.2.25, 38 ) |
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Secret agent man Iran-Contra operative Armitage is now Colin Powell's no.2 3.5.01 Jim Naureckas InTheseTimes
… last Republican administration only two political appointees didn't make
it through confirmation process: John Tower to head Def.Dept & Richard L. Armitage …
to secretary of the Army. Before nomination could come to vote, he withdrew, citing traditional
need to spend more time with his family. Perhaps more relevant was draft of an article of mine that
had just been shown by a
right-wing Republican senator to a top Pentagon official. Co-authored by
Richard Ryan, this article never appeared in print, but the threat
that it would apparently convinced Armitage … article was about Armitage's relationship with
Nguyet Thi O'Rourke, Vietnamese immigrant convicted of running gambling operation in northern
Virginia. Armitage had already attracted attention of President's Commission on Organized Crime
by writing character reference for her in conjunction with her trial on Pentagon stationery. …
Arlington Police raided O'Rourke's house, discovered photographs of nude O'Rourke holding
another photo, which depicted her and Armitage wearing swimsuits.
According to the Christic Institute's affidavit, Armitage was a key player in this team, helping to
funnel drug profits from Laos & Thailand into assassination programs in Vietnam & Iran.
Christic Institute's charges have never been proven, or fully investigated. Armitage's documented
history& associations do track allegations (see "Pentagon Aide Linked to Drug Ring," July 8,
1987). Armitage did come under investigation for his role in Reagan administration's Iran-Contra
scandal. He
testified he didn't know about the administration's secret sale of arms to Iran until Nov. 1986, when
they became public knowledge; independent counsel Lawrence Walsh's report laid out extensive
evidence that he knew about them a year earlier. Armitage apparently opposed the arms sales as
early as December 1985, on the grounds that Iranians were "sleazebags." Secord later testified he
met Armitage then to change his mind. Armitage claimed not to remember meeting, though
Armitage's own meeting logs show that he did. |
Syria summons U.S. envoy, protests against threat 10.14.01 Tehran Times
DAMASCUS, Syria Syrian Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. Ambassador Theodore Kattouf
Friday to deliver a strong protest against an implied threat made against Damascus on Thursday by U.S. Dep.
Sec.State R.Armitage, who said Washington could take military action against countries such as Syria in its
campaign against terrorism if they did not comply with its demands. The Syrian protest emphasized that Syrian,
Arab and Islamic demands for making a distinction in the campaign between terrorism and the right to resist foreign
occupation were in accordance with the UN charter & international law, the source said. … Syria
considered Armitage's statement contradictory to remarks by Pres. GWBush, that Syria had expressed its
readiness to take part in the war against terrorism and that Washington took that seriously, the source added.
"The Syrian Foreign Ministry told the ambassador it was unable to understand the contradiction in remarks by the
U.S. president & the deputy foreign minister, especially as Syria has strongly condemned the terrorist suicide attacks on New York & Washington," he said.
In Washington, State Dept spokesman Richard Boucher, said there was no reason to be upset because Armitage
merely restated Bush's remarks that nations had to choose. Boucher did not repeat Armitage's threat of military
action. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, has condemned the 9.11.01 attacks and called in a message to Bush for
a world effort to uproot terrorism. But Armitage told reporters on Thursday that targets in the U.S.-led anti-terrorism
campaign incl all groups that threatened the interests of the U.S. & its allies. Asked what the consequences
would be if countries such as Syria did not meet U.S. expectations in the campaign against terrorism, Armitage
said: "The consequences might be whatever the coalition finds worthy and it runs the gamut from isolation to
financial investigation, all the way up through possibly military action." Syria is on the U.S. State Dept's list of "state
sponsors of terrorism" because it hosts Lebanese & Palestinian organizations that attack Israel, a U.S. ally.
Syria argues that they are not terrorist groups but are legitimately fighting to liberate Arab lands from Israeli
occupation. Bush said in a news conference after Armitage's remarks that Washington took seriously Syrian offers
of help in the fight against terrorism but wanted to see results, not just words.
Coalition of the unwilling
When the refreshingly blunt-spoken deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage was asked for the umpteenth time
on Sunday whether the U.S. might target any other terrorist-supporting countries besides Afghanistan, he responded with this curious formulation: If "the coalition felt it was
necessary to go after terrorist groups in other countries, this would be a matter for the coalition to discuss among
themselves." Well, thanks. Maybe when "the coalition" finishes discussing the matter, someone will let us
Americans know what they decide. Bismarck said every alliance has a horse & a rider, and one should
endeavor to be the rider. The same goes for international coalitions. You're either leading them or they're leading
you. Of course, we're all interested in what "the coalition" feels may be necessary. We'd like to have as many
nations on our side as possible. But with many thousands of Americans dead, and who knows how many more at
risk, Washington ought to be making its own decisions about the war on terrorism.
This is not the voice of unilateralism speaking. Contrary to fashionable wisdom, the debate today is not between
multilateralism & unilateralism. It's between effective multilateralism and paralytic multilateralism.
Everyone agrees the model for effective multilateralism was the assembling of the Gulf War coalition a decade ago.
But some seem to have forgotten how that coalition came into being. It was Step Two, not Step One. First, the U.S.
determined on its own the core strategic objective: to evict Iraqi forces from Kuwait. Then & only then did the
U.S. start assembling a coalition of nations able & willing to help. It was a policy of multilateralism, but
preceded, as effective multilateralism must always be, by a unilateral determination to act. Bush didn't begin by
taking a poll of Arab monarchies. If he had, Saddam Hussein would still be in Kuwait. The Saudi royal family's first,
quite selfish impulse was to let Saddam keep Kuwait and to draw the line of containment at their own border.
Jordan's King Hussein, then our closest friend in the Arab world, sided openly with Iraq. In the end, Bush had to talk
the Saudis into what seemed to them a much riskier strategy. His own steely determination stiffened their spine.
But he had to go ahead without Jordan, whose spine was immune to stiffening. Bush succeeded anyway, because
he had decided, very publicly, what he wanted to do and then mustered a "coalition of the willing" to help him do it.
Had he decided to go on to Baghdad, Bush would have succeeded in that mission, too, and today we wouldn't all
be wondering whether anthrax spores spreading around the country were developed in one of Saddam's laboratories.
Contrast Bush's success with President Clinton's failed effort to win allied support for a policy of "lift & strike" in
Bosnia in 1993, the case study in paralytic multilateralism. Instead of leading the alliance, Clinton sent Warren
Christopher to Europe to "consult" with the reluctant allies, before Clinton had staked out a clear position of his
own. As David Halberstam writes in "War in a Time of Peace," the Europeans "were accustomed to someone like
George Shultz or James Baker telling them in a nice way that brooked little disagreement what the U.S. intended to
do." Instead, Christopher's "consultation" signaled that Clinton wasn't serious. And probably he wasn't. In fact,
some suspect Clinton counted on European opposition to beat down the more hawkish voices in his own
administration. Clinton had assembled, in effect, a coalition of the unwilling.
Does Armitage mean that, before we contemplate wider military action, we will have to ask the Saudi royal family if
it feels wider action is "necessary"? The Saudis haven't even decided yet that it is "necessary" to cut off all funding
to terrorists who fatten on Saudi bank accounts. They're not even sure it's "necessary" to keep fighting in
Afghanistan. And if the U.S. ever discovers Iraq is involved in the latest attacks, will we need to ask the Jordanian
king if he feels an invasion of Iraq is necessary? The answer will be the same as it was in 1990: not necessary.
It's important to have partners in this struggle. But a little sober realism is in order, too. At the end of the day, there
are a limited number of nations we can trust to look out for our most vital interests, and an even smaller number
strong enough and stable enough to be of real help. If we make our goals & strategy plain, those close allies
will likely join us, in Afghanistan and beyond, to do what we think is necessary to win the war. But if we let the
coalition of the unwilling call the shots, they'll gladly drag us down to defeat, everywhere.
US satellites 'spot Iraqis hiding suspected arms'
¹
²
³
Washington Baghdad to
al-Qaeda, and satellite pictures of panicked Iraqis
hiding suspected weapons of mass destruction. The Times has learnt details of the top-secret intelligence at Gen.
Powell's disposal as he prepares to boost the case for war against President Saddam Hussein with a much-
anticipated public briefing at UN Wednesday. The presentation is seen as vital to Washington's efforts to persuade
the intl community & American public, that the use of force against Baghdad is justified.
One well-placed US official said that the most compelling evidence was in photographs taken from spy satellites
over the past few weeks, while UN inspectors hunted for Iraq's banned weapons on the ground.
"The real killer stuff is going to be the satellite images indicating pretty clearly that Iraq was actively moving things
around while Unmovic (United Nations Monitoring, Verificiation & Inspections Commission) was visiting
different sites," the official said.
US officials said that they believed the UN mission in Iraq had been compromised, and that the Iraqis knew where
inspection teams were heading before they set off. Washington suspects the Iraqis have spies working at the UN or
are successfully monitoring UN communications.
Some of the evidence was gathered from a senior al- Qaeda official detained by the Americans and another
suspect arrested in Syria. "We learned al-Qaeda contacted senior officials in Baghdad and sought co-operation on
biological & chemicals weapons," he said. "That checked out with other sources." The contact was believed to
have been made some time after 9.11.01. It involved a request
for training & development of biological & chemical weapons.
There is no attempt to link Saddam to al-Qaeda members' 9.11.01 attacks . But Mr Armitage did accuse Iraq of
being implicated in last year's assassination of an American diplomat in Jordan, whose murder was orchestrated by
"an al-Qaeda member who is resident in Baghdad". |
6.00 Yukio Okamoto Gaiko Forum foreign affairs monthly journal from Toshi Shuppan Publishers supported by Japan Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Armitage … Let me answer this as an ordinary American. America is a
country that was built by people seeking religious & political freedom. The
founders of America were a minority in resisting England's colonialism and had to
believe strongly in what they were doing to move in the direction that they did. Therefore,
most Americans strongly believe that they, too, can change the direction that the world is
moving in, regardless of whether or not they are part of a minority. This is the first
reason. Second, America's security has always been provided for by the Pacific &
Atlantic Oceans. Since security has been guaranteed in this way, people have been able
to speak freely about what they believe in without fear. Thus, Americans strongly defend
& encourage that freedom of speech. …
Q Do you mean that America could have won militarily?
Q … America had been on the military defensive since the Tet
Offensive of 1968. Armitage: That was not the case. America was just one step short of military victory.
Q What effect did the split in American opinion have on American security
policy?
Q So you think that the sacrifice of Marines was not in vain.
Q Then why did America, which moved into Bosnia without hesitation,
avoid involvement in E.Timor?
Q What is America's national interest, human rights & democracy or
pure national interest? If democracy is the gauge by which the U.S. determines how it
will act in certain situations, then why is it that, for example, while there is little difference
between Myanmar & China, America is harsh in its criticism of one & soft on
the other? |
Q Why is America imposing sanctions on Myanmar?
Armitage: The reasons are simple. First, in Myanmar there was an appealing pro-
American type of heroine in Aung San Suu Kyi. Then, America was prodded into action
by a vocal minority that pressed its case strongly. Then, there is the fact that it was easy
for America to decide to intervene in Myanmar, where few competing American interests
would be affected.
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For services to the UK
top awards for foreign tycoons, military 4.24.06 Nick Davies, Rob Evans The Guardian
Hans Rausing, Swedish billionaire whose tax arrangements were revealed by the Guardian, is among scores of foreign citizens awarded official honours in the last year. Rausing, former head of Tetra Pak, who has lived in England since 1982, was awarded an honorary knighthood in January.
Rausing is one of 100 non-UK citizens honoured since last May named in a list released by the Foreign Office after a parliamentary question from the Liberal Democrat MP Norman Baker. Unlike honours to UK citizens, those for foreigners are not generally announced.
Jack Straw defended the award to Rausing, describing him as "one of the most significant private philanthropists in the UK". He added: "His generosity and the support he has given to a wide range of charities and educational establishments have benefited numerous people, from all walks of life throughout the UK".
Honoured with a KCMG is Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state under Colin Powell between 2001 and 2005 and a leading player in rallying diplomatic support for the Iraq invasion. Armitage's role in the Iran-Contra arms smuggling scandal was controversial enough to prevent him becoming army secretary in 1989. He worked alongside Oliver North to trade arms to Iran illegally and siphon profits to the Nicaraguan contra rebels.
An honorary knighthood goes to Arnold Fisher, chairman of the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund, which has given financial support to the widows and children of US and UK service personnel killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Twelve overseas businessmen and women have received awards. Malaysian power co. YTL head Francis Yeoh received a CBE. In 2002, British police investigated an allegation that YTL paid a £ 1m "bribe" to Wessex Water boss Colin Skellett. YTL denied the allegation and no charges were brought. |
New tricks per old dog interview w/ Richard Armitage excerpted 6.9.00 Michael Chandler Arlington VA Frontline "The Future of War" episode
Q What went wrong with Task Force Hawk in 1999?
Armitage: In the main, it was a failure of leadership and a failure of anticipation.
You had a situation in Kosovo, which was rapidly devolving. The U.S. was rapidly being
brought into it. In Germany you had our most deployable, self-deployable unit in the
Apache units. And yet the leadership of the Army and the US military failed to take the
necessary steps beforehand to make sure this unit was a deployable asset.
Q What would you say to people who say the Army transformation got
jump started from Task Force Hawk, but that's all? It's just a short term response to
Hawk.
Armitage: Well I think that is the real question. The question that many have about what
General Shinseki is trying to do now is whether he's actually trying to fight the Kosovo
war better or whether he's really trying to take his army 10 to 20 years out. I don't think
any of us have the answer to that question yet. I mightily admire General Shinseki's
willingness to take on some of the iron rice bowls which exist in his own service. But I
don't know if what he ultimately wants to do is just to fight Kosovo better. But he started
on a track and I think those that come along behind can accelerate and modulate that.
… his vision has not been communicated sufficiently, not throughout his service. I
question whether, if you were to walk around different divisions in the Army and ask
what the chief was about, that they'd all have the same answer. I don't want to
underestimate the difficulty of the task that General Shinseki is undertaking. But I think
it's going to take tremendous, sustained heavy lifting by the Chief & the Vice Chief,
of the Army to bring this about. It's going to take sustained top down support from the
SecDefense & the Army Secretary.
Q You mentioned adaptability to change in relation to the Army. Can you
talk about that just in terms of the basic perception?
Armitage: It starts with the view that although we are in a situation of pre-eminence in
the world, it won't last forever. Second, we ought to use this relative interlude in terms of
peer competition to develop those technologies and tactics and core structure that will
allow us to solve the future dilemmas that we'll face. It is quite reasonable to assume
that the US Army and the other branches of our service are going to face an enemy in
the future who has learned the lessons of the Gulf War, that has learned the lessons of
our forward forces & bases. And consequently, they will do their utmost to assure
that they deny those bases to us which puts a premium on the ability to project power
over long distance without forward bases. This puts a premium on light adjunct forces,
which makes much more use of stealth & agility than it does thickness of armor for
protection of forces.
Q General Wesley Clark gave a speech and he said that Bosnia &Kosovo aren't training
distractors. They are the mission. Is there a certain reluctance of taking on these efforts?
Armitage: There certainly was a reluctance in understanding which way the situation in
Kosovo was going. You were sitting in Europe with our most deployable force, one that
in the Gulf War actually self-deployed to the Gulf from Germany. And yet we (the Army)
weren't able to get ourselves in a situation to be of any use in Kosovo when we finally
got there. They were trained in their own techniques. They didn't have the proper
equipment et cetera. That's a failure of leadership. It wasn't a failure of budget. It wasn't
a failure of pilots, it was a failure of leadership. … General Clark, I hope, would
hasten to add that the ultimate mission of our armed forces and our army is to fight and
win the nation's wars when our survival is threatened. That was not the case in Kosovo
or Bosnia.
Q You said in (a recent) speech that land forces would separate the good
from the bad. What do you mean? Armitage: I take as a given that, unfortunately, future conflicts will be much more conducted in urban environments than any serviceman or service leader would like. Then you're going to have to have ground forces who are able to separate combatants from non combatants, that are able to make decisions on the spot about who's a good guy and who's a bad guy. You can't do that from 15,000 feet in the air. You can't do it from behind an AWAC screen. You can't do it no matter how network-centered you are at the Navy. It takes a t-shirt and muddy boots on the ground to conduct that mission. … land forces have a separate nature. They're not antiseptic in their approach to conflict. It's very up-close & personal. It puts a premium on leadership skills. … future battlefields look a lot like Grozny or Somolia, or for that matter Kosovo.. |
Q It seems that the National Training Ctr in California is not exactly the
place for preparing soldiers for what the conflicts of the future are going to be. How
would you characterize it?
Armitage: Yeah the National Training Ctr has been an interesting experimental ground
for the digitized army. But it's not totally joint in its approach to things. And I think it
doesn't foster what I think is going to be a necessary factor of experimentation. It's not a
situation which allows people to fail. You learn a lot more from failures than you do from
success. Particularly when we're all experimenting in what's the proper way to go to the
future. So the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) in Louisiana is a much more
experimental. The very nature of joint ventures (more than one armed service involved)
allows for a little more freedom of action, freedom of decision making, and, as we're
trying to find the right mix and match of joint capabilities, then there's a little more
tolerance for failure. …
Q You talked about tiered readiness. In layman's terms, what's wrong
with having certain forces readier than others?
Armitage: Tiered readiness does indicate that there are degrees of readiness. It has not
worked well in the Navy. I know tiered readiness. You never are totally able to
understand who might be deployed when & who might be called on for what. So
tiered readiness may enable you to have a front line unit which is basically 100% but
give you a false sense of security because your units that aren't on the front line are
sometimes seriously lacking. And yet they may be called upon to perform given
contingencies. So it's better to have general readiness rather than a tiered readiness.
… crystal balls are generally muddy and therefore you can't pick which units are
going to have to go. Generally all have to be ready.
Q You have said that we can't fall into the trap that you felt the French
& British did between the world wars and that was applying new technology to old
structures.
Armitage: There's a misunderstanding of what the revolution in military affairs is &
the transformation in strategy is. I think many think it's just a function of technology
stealth et cetera. It is not. It is technology to a certain extent. But it's tactics as well
& it's core structures. Now firepower is so great that you can have an army brigade
cover what during the Vietnam time it took a division to cover in terms of fire power,
footprint. It's not reasonable to always assume that we're going to have to march forward
into the 21st century with division-sized units. There has to be a smaller but organically
deployable sized unit. You apply the new structure with new tactics to new technologies.
New communications technologies allow you to operate free from the clutter of buildings
and then you've got a transformation. One of those three alone is not sufficient to give
you transformation strategy.
Q The new units out at Ft Lewis WA are going to be about 5000. They're
called brigade combat units. They're combined units. Isn't General Shinseki getting
towards what you are talking about.
Armitage: #133; He's searching for them. We want to search for them too. And I think
there's room for a certain amount of experimentation. That's why I've said I really
support the arduous task that Gen. Shinseki has put on his shoulders. But I'm not sure
whether he's really trying to work 20 years into the future or actually solve the problem
that he found that he had during Kosovo. And this will be something that can be
determined through a series of experimentations. I think he has to spell out to his army
what his hopes and aspirations for his army are. He's got to rigorously tell them how
difficult & painful it's going to be for certain elements of the service. The muscular
armored community, for instance, they're going to have to give up some. And just having
cannons that shoot or howitzers that shoot slightly longer than present day howitzers,
but are no more deployable, is no longer sufficient. I think also that Gen. Shinseki has
got to continue what he started working on with Capitol Hill so he can get enough
members of congress to buy in. Legislators such as Senator Joe Lieberman, Senator
Rick Santorum & Senator Pat Roberts, AR, need to be consulted so that they will
have the strength & convictions to stick with the Army during this period.
Q Do you think that the solutions lie in breaking down the division
structure?
Armitage: It's time to move away from the division structure; I am persuaded by the
firepower print argument. Much of the affection for the division structure lies in having a
flag & the division standard. But it's not easy to break traditions to go against the
big retired community who has a great affection for days gone past. I understand this.
It's human nature. I think it's not entirely fair just to lay this on the back of one service
chief. That's General Shinseki. All of the services need to have a transformation
strategy. All of them deserve to have leadership & guidance from a SecDefense
who will support them when they are right and will be right in their face when they are
wrong. I think it's been lacking. … Colonel McGregor's "Breaking the Phalanx" is an
energetic & innovative proposal. The only problem that I really see with Col.
McGregor's solution is that he's working in a very narrow part of the Army. The Army is
not just combat forces. The Army is support forces. It's logistics. It's families, it's health
care, it's education & schooling. It's a lot of things. Col. McGregor's excellent &
innovative book on breaking the phalanx addresses firepower & combat. The chief
of the service has a lot of things on his plate he has to worry about simultaneously. I
would argue that Gen. Shinseki should bring people like Col. McGregor & young
Turks inside the tent to get the benefit of their energy & their experience. He should
also explain to them the breadth of his responsibilities as Army Chief of Staff so they can
march forward together and it's won't be seen as one group pitted against another.
Q There was an article in the Washington Times last week that quoted
active & retired generals in unanimity of opposition to the transformation. What's
your opinion about the lack of support from people like this.
Armitage: The article is indicative that Luddites are alive & well in the US Army.
Learn from the past & from the difficulty we've had in deploying and do what's
necessary to be able to make sure our army is relevant to the future. Part of the reason
these folks dared to be so resistant is they're not sure that Gen. Shinseki's vision is
really going to get traction. They've seen in the army historical attempts at changes.
Gen. Shinseki alone, no matter how hard he works & no matter now many 46 hour
days he puts in, is going to be incapable of doing this. He needs to have a SecDefense
who strongly supports getting the job done. If you get enough people in the Defense
Dept becoming involved in General Shinseki's vision, then you'll find the resistance will
go down. To the extent people are unsure whether the transformation is really going to
take, then you're going to have that resistance. … The SecDefense is going to have
to lead the charge on transformation and give his service chief & his service
secretary some cover. And that has certainly not been the case. If it had been the case,
the House committee would not be calling for it.
Q People have seen proposed changes come and go. What makes you
think this I going to be different?
Armitage: What the House & the Senate see on the one hand is this continuum, but
they see no procurement decisions which connect the dots. And nobody in the army has
been able to connect the procurement decisions to look like a series of discreet different
armies. Now that's what they're complaining about. What Congress & the American
public want to see is someone connecting the dots. They want to understand that I'm
making this procurement decision which will allow me eventually to get here to the "Army
after next" of Gen.Shinseki's vision. To the extent the Army says they want to have a
force that's in a different structure, deploy in 96 hours, etc. and doesn't' make
procurement decisions that support that, then you have a disconnect, confusion &
trouble.
Q Rep. Thornberry, House Armed Svc Committee & Senator
Lieberman, Senate Armed Svc Committee are saying they admire the fact that the Army
transformation is going quickly, but they wanted to go more slowly. Is Shinseki going too
fast?
Armitage: … The whole picture hasn't been laid out for the Congress; there's
anxiety.… There's a lot more enthusiasm in the case of Gov. GWBush who,
early in his presidential campaign, said transformation of the military is one of his 3
major goals.
Q The Washington Times story said Shinseki is sacrificing short-term war
fighting ability to fund his long term vision & accusations of sacrificing weapon
systems. Do you agree with that?
Armitage: Whoever is chief of staff of the Army is going to have to sacrifice some
weapons systems. All of the weapon systems that were envisioned in the 1980s are not
going to be applicable for the situation in 2020. … The nation's going to be better
for it in the long run. Chief (Shinseki) has already cut back on the Crusader howitzer
because it was not as deployable as necessary. That makes a lot of sense. He said
there will be some further questioning of aviation accounts, particularly the Comanche
helicopter, which is a fine helicopter. But there are a lot of them. The Wolverine has
been canceled. Gen. Shinseki is the guy who's got to make the decision.
Q John Hillen said there's been the biggest increase since the end of the
Cold War, but he said hawks should be also concerned about the rise in the budget. He
felt those who want a bigger defense budget should also be concerned because
everybody calls it the death spiral. If you're clinging to the old ways of funding weapons
systems, you're going to wind up funding the past and it's going to be irrelevant.
Armitage: Gov. GWBush indicated early our armed forces have been robbing
procurement accounts to pay for the operations & maintenance count. Therefore,
we've got a real short fall in our procurement budget. But before Bush asked for an
increase in the defense budget, he wants to feel confident that we're making wise
choices. Wise choices will be to curtail or to forgo some legacy system upgrades or
perhaps some actual procurements of systems that are not going to be applicable to the
problems of the 21st century. I think that's what John Hillen's talking about. You can put
more money in the defense budget, but if the procurement choices aren't wise, then it's
wasted money. You can put 20 billion dollars a year in for uniforms. And it's not going to
make a damn bit of difference in terms of combat power. What will make a difference is
the ability to have service men who feel that they're properly appreciated by the nation
and the ability to have properly trained personnel. This is a function of wise choices as
much as it's a function of the bottom line of the budget.
Q In the Citadel speech where Gov.GWBush first announced a new tack
on the military, he talked about skipping a generation of weapons.
Armitage: The Clinton administration robbed the services for the past 7 years. …
Gov. Bush says it's not sufficient to just command great forces; you have to support
those great forces. One of the best ways we can support our forces is to take a leap in
technology. We can do this because of the interlude we enjoy right now and because we
are faced with no peer competitor. We have got plenty of operations for our military, but
we do not have the riveting superpower confrontation, eye ball to eye ball, that we had
for the 50 years of the Cold War. And we can either take advantage of this or just drift
along.
Q Fred Kagan, West Point instructor, said he's not so sure skipping a
generation was the right thing to do. What you need to do is to keep funding, keep
upgrading. You can't skip a generation, you have to fund them, field them, test them
& then set them aside.
Armitage: He's not entirely right. If you start with the concept of just having a gun &
keep improving the gun or a cannon on a tank, you'll never get out to where you need to
be for the 21st century. Get away from something that depends on an iron mountain of
shells to be dragged along behind it. Go to, for instance, electromagnetic energy as
weapon. Then you are indeed skipping a generation, a generation of upgrades to an
existing gun. If you're successful, you will have eliminated the iron mountain which slows
down our ability to deploy. Test & evaluate what Gov.Bush is talking about.
Start with the concept. Put money into research & development so we can think
what should be out there in the future, what best can solve our problems. We need to
project power; we need to put force on target. But we don't want to have an iron
mountain dragged behind us. Start with that concept & work back.
Q Is the Clinton administration getting a bum rap on spending too little on
the military?
Armitage: President Clinton funded the military at one level but he operated them far
beyond the operations & visions set during the end of Pres.Bush's term. The
Clinton admin seriously eroded military capabilities; in every measure you could imagine
recruiting is down. Pilot seats are down, retention is down. If that's not a sign of
problems with morale, what is? Procurement shortfalls are a matter of record; everybody
from the Congressional Budget Office on have been screaming about it for some time.
You have severe challenges in terms of leadership. Some active duty officers are
actually stepping up &and challenging the chief (Shinseki) formally in the
newspaper. That's evidence of a loss of good order & discipline. There's every right
to criticize the Clinotn administration. VP Gore has been by his own words a very active
forceful participant in the decisions of the Administration. So I think the Pentagon should
look forward to a sign of being under new management.
Q Last year there was a firestorm of criticism when the Tenth Mountain
Division was rated C4 (unready).
Armitage: There was anecdotal evidence of this 4, 5 years ago. And no one stepped up
to it. None of the chiefs of service stepped up to it. Two recent army divisions were rated
as C4. Not deployable. It's not a state secret that we're in a pretty dismal state. And now
you've seen newspaper articles where the chiefs of service, suddenly Rip Van Winkel-
like, have awakened and found we need to up our budget by $20 or $30 billion. Where
were they for the last 5 or 6 years?
Q What would you say to the people who say if we can't do with our
present resources, if we can't manage our smallscale peace, we don't have a readiness
problem, we've got a management problem?
Armitage: We have a management problem. We've got a readiness problem first. One
exacerbates the other. I don't think the SecDefense or service secretaries have taken
very seriously the tenet the first general order. That is: you take charge of all govt
property in sight. They haven't done it. There has been too much of a laissez-faire
attitude in my view. And it's allowed both management & readiness problems to
come to the fore. The benign comment is that they probably thought they would just do
the best that they could do & try to ameliorate the situation as best they could. A
more dark view would be that they weren't willing to put their stars on the line to correct
a situation. I'm not sure which is the right answer.
Q Now the joint chiefs have just issued a statement last week that they're
going to ask for $30 billion more and everybody is prepping for what's going to come in
September in the budget. But what people are saying is the Pentagon's now got their
three different core structures. All we're going to have is a rerun of what we had four
years ago, that they're calling for more money and then divvy it up. True?
Armitage: Gov.Bush has clearly signaled he's up for new business. And that's why in his
Citadel speech he talked about doing business in a different way and he talked about
putting money into R&D and he talked about allocating up to 20% of the
procurement budget to fund the new transformation. He talked about a SecDefense who
is going to have an immediate & thorough top-down review. And he talked about
standing up behind the decisions he'll make. He knows people are going to be unhappy.
Fine, they'll get over it. They will see that Gov.Bush has the courage of his convictions to
see it through to the end. And the end will mean a better, more capable military with
service members who are appreciated not only by their leadership but by the American
public.
Q There was a study about a year ago saying there was going to be a
defense train wreck and it predicted a budget shortfall in the next 30 years of $75 to
$100 billion a year.
Armitage: The CSIS budget study was an embarrassment; they're guilty of hyperbole.
The facts are horrible enough. The Ctr for Budget Analysis, CSBA, is known as having a
much better handle on these matters. $20 billion dollars or so is a legitimate shortfall that
needs to be addressed. Before you start adding money, you've got to make sure you're
making the right choices to sustain any increase in the budget otherwise Congress won't
buy in with us. We've got to prove to them that we mean business and we'll stand behind
the decisions we'll make.
Q How do you convince an American public that what's really needed is
increased defense spending when the peer competitor (Soviet Union) has been wiped
off the map. There is no immediate threat on the horizon. Isn't this just another gambit by
the services to get themselves more money if a Republican Administration comes back
to Washingrton? Or even if there is a Gore administration, this will bump spending up to
the good old days.
Armitage: There's no easy way to do this. We start from a pretty good basis. Bush said
he's going to make defense an issue in his campaign. It's not that it was burning issue in
the minds of the American public, but he made it so because the first duty of a president
is to protect & defend this nation. And this is very different for a politician. He's
willing to make the decisions that he realized that he'll not benefit from during his time in
office. Some successor, Democrat or Republican, will. … Working in surplus right
now makes the job slightly easier than it might have been otherwise.
Q Irony in a $250 billion budget for the military and ammunition shortfalls,
lack of readiness, marines rummaging on Saturday night trying to get a suit of clothing.
And then you hear about a $350 billion or, if you include other aviation systems, up to a
$750 billion budget.
Armitage: Do we need new tactical aircraft? Yes. Do we need 3? Probably not. Do we
need the 3000+ that are envisioned? Absolutely not. Gov.Bush has said it will be one of
the first orders of business to review the tactical aviation account. He said correctly also
the support aircraft. Cause you can't just look at the attack air account without taking into
consideration suppression aircraft & the rest of it. … A lesser number although
per-unit cost will be slightly higher & money in R&D for a 21st century fighter.
Even the F22, as capable an aircraft & as stealthy an aircraft as it is, is late-1980s
technology.
Q The services divide up the pie pretty equally, but doesn't there need to
be joint appraisal of who gets what money? Maybe the Army transformation is the most
important thing that has to happen. And other services have to sacrifice a little bit in
order for that to happen. Is that even a remote possibility?
Armitage: If you looked at history, you'd say probably not. … A mission approach to
the services breaks that paradigm of equal slice of the pie. For example, combat in an
urban environment. We know we're going to have to operate there and see what
services and what combination of services can best handle it. It might turn out that the
Army is best suited, or the Marine Corps best suited. Or the Air Force has the ability with
their technology to be somewhat helpful. But it'll be the combination of abilities brought
to bear & the experimentation that we would hope comes at the joint forces
command in Norfolk which would give us the beginning of the answers on how to divvy
up the procurement moneys.
[ Couched phrasing for Kosovo as test market for all new R&D that renege
Clinotn admin MilSec contracts]
Q What do you say to people who say I don't want any more increase in
defense money? We're looking at the U.S. and its allies around the world spending over
70% of the world's military expenditures. And the countries we would presumably be
fighting against have less than 20%. We've got the second largest army in the world,
active army in the world if you count reserves. Aren't we just in an arms race with
ourselves?
Armitage: It is one of the duties of a president is to preserve & prolong our
preeminence as a force in the world, as long as humanly possible. One of the ways
we can do that is to make sure that we have the ability to protect our interests &
allied interests wherever & whenever.
[ Absolutes like wherever & whenever necessitate
absolutes throughout such as however, placing ends before means which unveils
the ideological fanaticism of the National Security State that always threatens the legal
primacy of democracy. Muslim holy war is no less myopic. ]
And it's not cheap. The American public do have an appetite for this if the services
themselves & the Defense Dept can prove to the public that they're worthy of the
support. If opinion polls are to be believed, the public is prepared to believe this but this
means that we have to make good procurement decisions. We have to make good core
structure decisions. We have to make good recruiting & retention decisions and
we've got to prove capable stewards of this account. If we do that, I think the public will
buy in.
[ Note verbs used for end goals connote purchase while means are
characterized as consensus, indicating sales rather than defense is the purpose of the
MilSec budget . ]
Q Is the 2 major theater of war, or two MTW, a stumbling block to actually
getting us security as a country?
Armitage: 2 major theaters of war is a stumbling block and we started it. It's a
mistranslation of what was Europe & Asia. We had to be able to operate fully
& completely in both areas. It wasn't simply a function of major theater wars. It
became, over time, core structure matter, particularly for the Army & particularly for
their Korea force, the second infantry division. We are both a European & a Pacific
power. We've got to be able to work simultaneously in both areas. Get rid of the word
war and just talk about major theater powers. That means we're going to have to make
certain decisions to be able to move ourselves both by sea & by air to potential
areas of conflict. We're going to have to pre-position in both theaters if an emergency
occurs. But major theater of war has become a harmful political code.
Q Regarding Army war games at the War College, are those games
helpful to us in assessing how our enemy is going to fight us in the future and how we
should shape our forces? Is the word game too trivial a word to apply to them or is it
accurate?
Armitage: The word game is not too trivial to apply to what occupies the minds and the
energies of a lot of officers in our service. And there are a lot of lessons learned out of it.
How we can be vulnerable, for instance, to asymmetrical approaches by an enemy. It
allows us to really believe in our hearts & in our minds that a future enemy may
really be intent on not allowing us to use forward bases. So to that extent, it's useful.
… The Army ultimately took away the right lesson from 1999 failure of Task Force
Hawk. That is, we're on the verge of being irrelevant to the national command authority.
It doesn't do us good to get close. We're the only service who has as a mission to close
with & defeat the enemy. If we're not able to close with & defeat the enemy,
then we're not good. We're going to lose out to the other services.
Q How does transformation tackle the Task Force Hawk problem?
Armitage: It puts a premium on the ability to be mobile, agile, hostile, lethal. …
That's what Gen. Shinseki's transformation is all about. Whether it's sufficient for the
needs in the 21st century is something that we'll see, but he's well on his way to
changing the mindset of the US Army. … He has to be a lot broader in terms of his
communication to his entire army. Just who's the winner, who's the loser, what it's all
about. He's got to broaden his constituency on the Hill & he needs to spend a
lot of time working with the contractors who are his customers to make sure they
understand his vision so they'll be able to spend some of their R&D moneys to meet his
needs. That's still missing as far as I can see from this distance.
Q And what about the wheels versus tracks debate? Was it just about a
vehicle?
Armitage: Now the wheels-tracks debate, I think that was unfortunate; Shinseki should
have stuck to a sort of descriptive phrase such as agility & mobility. And I don't
think any of us know the answer to whether all wheels or all tracks, or both, are the
answer. The point is Shinseki is saying we've got to be able to get to the fight. It doesn't
do us any good to get there too heavy, too late. So he wants to get there on time, agile
enough to be effective and to affect the outcome of the conflict. That's what he's really
saying, whether it's wheels or tracks. I don't know the answer, nor does he.
Q Do you think that wanting to hang back a little in the Congress is nit
picking, or do you think that's a legitimate concern?
Armitage: I think it's a legitimate concern if they're not sure where the Army is going.
They don't want to see money just frittered away. I think they need to feel that Gen.
Shinseki is able to connect the procurement dots. When he comes to Congress within
budget for next year, he needs to show them how the decisions he made and the
procurements that he's going to forgo make his army the one that can be relevant to the
21st century. If he can do that, then I think a lot of these anxieties will go away. If he
can't do that, then the cacophony of sounds will increase.
Q What about legacy systems like the Wolverine and Grizzly? Shinseki
was willing to give them up. Congress put them back in the budget. The House
Appropriations Committee report said the Army is going to have to make tough decisions
about weapons programs. Isn't that one of them?
Armitage: The legacy system upgrades question is a tough one. I take the point of view,
particularly on the M1 tank, that we already outgun and outmaneuver every tank in the
world. Our own problem is right now we don't deploy very well. And these tanks have a
big iron mountain that goes behind them . We already outgun everyone, so why
would we want to upgrade these tanks? Save the money & apply it to R&D for
the future tank? In Gen.Shinseki's view, a much lighter, more deployable tank is around
35 tons or so. That depends more on its agility & stealthiness than it does for the
thickness of armor to protect soldiers. Now this takes a real cultural change & a
mind set of people who run around in tanks for a living. They've got to have confidence
in the technology. That's not going to happen because Gen. Shinseki says so. It's going
to happen because people test the concept & get confident of their system. This
doesn't' happen in a year or 3.
Q Ft. Knox KY commandant General Bell was behind the transformation.
Do you think that there are misgivings in the armored community that are not being
voiced or voiced behind close doors?
Armitage: Of course there are misgivings in the army community. If this were easy, the
leadership would have already made these changes. There are huge misgivings. Most of
them don't fight it out on the front pages of the newspaper. Some did. And they voice it
to the Chief. Or they drag their feet, so they can have the luxury of saying, oh I told you
so, if a new guy becomes Chief of Staff and changes things back to the old way. That's
why I say, if Republicans come in, things aren't going to back to the old way. We're
going to get into the 21st century whether they like it or not. … We're never going to
know until we test the concept.
Q Is the Army too top heavy?
Armitage: All our services have too many generals. There are now three admirals there
while there was one during the Cold War. Clearly things are a little out of balance.
Q Are we going to spend more money to change to smaller units or
less?
Armitage: I think ultimately it'll be less money, but probably way in the future. There will
be savings. You're not going to have any savings immediately. To change the
force structure simply for savings is wrong. Change the force structure so we'll be better
able to do the nation's business. Ultimately there will be savings. The reason to
transform is so we can better do the nation's business.
Those who criticize General Shinseki that he's only building a peacekeeping force are
not listening to what he said. He's got a clear strategic reserve at Ft Hood which is quite
heavy & is what I call the "what if" force. What if we're wrong about the future, what
if a future enemy wants to take us in our strength in traditional heavy battles? We can do
that because we've kept a strategic reserve at Ft Hood. Those who want to criticize Gen.
Shinseki had better make sure their criticisms are totally accurate, not partially.
9.9.97 Sec. Armitage says it best; we're here to play and we're here to stay. That's our goal & we want China to understand that. Our presence is not aimed at China. Our presence is aimed at preserving peace & stability and we're going to continue to play that role. We want very much for China to understand that and not to take steps to undermine it."
DoD briefing 7.16.00 SecDef Wm Cohen Oakes: The leaders you met in China, are you now quite confident that they accept there should be no attempt to use armed force to regain Taiwan? Cohen: Well, what the Chinese leadership has said is that they reserve the right to use force, although they indicated they have no intent to use force against Taiwan. And my message |
Last weekend's lunch menu at the Redstone Arsenal Al Martin
… Regarding the 51 Russians who were kicked out of the country … The Armitage-Carlucci Cabal is
back. … It's never stopped. … This is what these contingency programs were all about, developed by Oliver North and the National Programs Office (as described in The Conspirators). It's the reason why the Reagan Bush Admin reactivated the CILF Program, Civilian Inmate Labor Facility program. That's why they had an active plan to launch a coup d'etat against themselves, ostensibly done by people not under their control, in other words, to take control directly, if it became necessary. The military would have carried it out,- but under Bush auspices. They would make it appear to be a coup d'etat, when in fact it wasn't. It was just an excuse to take control,- if this cascade effect became apparent to the public. … |
Oakes: I raise that because of comments made last year by Richard Armitage. I guess, as the one
Republican in the Democrat administration you'd know him. He advises Republican candidate GWBush and used
to advise his father. Did you read his comments where he said that Australia has a role in preventing Beijing from
using military force against Taiwan, and Australia must stand ready to give military support to Washington if the
U.S. goes to war with China?
Cohen: Well, I didn't read his comments on that. I might point out that Mr. Armitage is only one of GWBush's
advisers. There are quite a few others. But the fact is that Australia has always been supportive of the U.S.,
certainly during the 20th century. In every conflict that we've been involved, Australia's been side-by-side with the
U.S.
[ Nugan Hand Bank, for example, although this resembles sodomy more than co-lateral
collaboration. ]
Oakes: I am interested, though, in finding out how generally held these views are. Mr. Armitage said that Australia
can't pick and choose. If tension in the Taiwan Strait led to war between the U.S. and China, Washington would
expect Australia to contribute to, and I quote, "the dirty, hard & dangerous work".
He explained China's policy on the Taiwan issue and stressed that the separatist activities of those seeking Taiwan
independence posed "a grave threat to peace & stability across the Taiwan Straits'' and "sabotaged peace
& stability in the Asia-Pacific region.'' The Chinese Govt adhered to the guideline of "peaceful reunification,''
"one country, two systems'' and the 8 point proposal made by President Jiang for resolving the Taiwan question, he
said. China will never allow Taiwan to become independent nor tolerate the harm caused by separatist forces in
Taiwan to China's sovereignty & territorial integrity, he said. Hu urged Washington to adhere to the one-China
policy and the principles set forth in the three Sino-US joint communiques and play a constructive role in peace
& stability across the Taiwan Straits & China's peaceful reunification.
Armitage said US Pres. GWBush & Chinese President Jiang's Shanghai & Beijing meetings played a vital
role in improving & developing bilateral ties. Washington attaches importance to Jiang's upcoming US visit and
is ready to make full preparations along with the Chinese side, he said. Even though there were different views on
US-China relations in the U.S., most people agreed that the relationship should be developed, said Armitage.
The US is willing to strengthen co-operation with China, including in the fight against terrorism, and hopes to handle
differences constructively, he said. He added that co-operation between the 2 countries is helpful in tackling many
international problems. He reiterated that the US Govt continues to adhere to the one-China policy and does not
support Taiwan independence.
[
Sino leader HJ's initiation onto intl heroin geohegemony = Armitage ]
President Jiang Zemin's upcoming visit to the U.S. is significant for the further development of constructive and co-
operative Sino-US ties, Vice-President Hu Jintao Monday told US Deputy Sec.State Richard Armitage. Hu said he
hoped both sides would make concerted efforts & meticulous preparation for a successful visit.
Hu praised the co-operation between the 2 countries on trade and the fight against terrorism, and close
consultations on global & regional issues. He commended the positive results achieved in those areas.
He added that, though there are still differences between the 2 countries, they share extensive common interests.
Hu said he hoped the two countries will handle bilateral ties from strategic & long-term perspectives.
Armitage & Hu discuss
ties
8.27.02 China
Daily
Armitage was in Beijing to hold political consultations with Chinese Vice-Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing.
They took the model to Iran and to Central America & the Philippines. They move in any place they can de-stabilize a govt. They sell arms.
My primary interest for years has been bringing home the prisoners of war that I'm still convinced are being held in the Far East. But the reason they can't be allowed to come home is because one of the men in charge was Richard Armitage, the same man identified by Danny Sheehan of the Christic Institute in his suit and
by General Khun Sa as the bagman in the dope deals through the years. …
Congress wouldn't give the money to support covert operations so they used drug money to finance it all. When the war ended, these guys didn't want to quit. They had been making their own parallel policy for so long they just weren't going to quit when a President changed the direction of that policy.
They have their dope connection with the mob which began when they made a deal with Salvatore
Trafficante to dispose of it in New York years ago.
the man who has been protecting him over the years is another former CIA man Carlucci.", appt
SecDefense when Weinberger retired.
8.29.96 Arthur Suchesk Orange Cty
connection
links
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FPIF China Ronald Rewald
Crimes of Patriots ¹
Politics of heroin in SE Asia Alfred McCoy |
member Defense Policy Board former Asst Secretary of Defense for Intl Security Affairs former U.S. Ambassador to the Newly Independent States (exUSSR) extensive regional security experience in former Soviet Union, E.Asia & MidEast CIA station chief in Saigon graduate, US Naval Academy |
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