Redstate

By AcademicElephant Posted in User Blogs — Comments (9) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »

Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Peter Pace emerged last week as an important surrogate in the "public opinion" theater of the Iraq war.  He's powerful and effective because even John Kerry and Jack Murtha don't want to go on record contradicting the military's top brass about the progress being made in Iraq.  He's also demonstrated that he's an independent voice, not an administration shill, and so has even greater public authority.

The Rumsfeld/Pace DoD briefing on Tuesday and the General's "Expemporaneous Remarks on our National Strategy for Victory in Iraq" bracketed the President's major Iraq speech at the Naval Academy on Wednesday, and need to be seen as part of the larger strategy to reshape public perception of the Iraq war.

Two things stood out for me from the briefing.  The first was the now well-known episode in which Pace corrected Secretary Rumsfeld on military policy.  The exchange:

Q    And General Pace, what guidance do you have for your military commanders over there as to what to do if -- like when General Horst found this Interior Ministry jail?

GEN. PACE:  It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene to stop it.  As an example of how to do it if you don't see it happening but you're told about it is exactly what happened a couple weeks ago.  There's a report from an Iraqi to a U.S. commander that there was possibility of inhumane treatment in a particular facility.  That U.S. commander got together with his Iraqi counterparts.  They went together to the facility, found what they found, reported it to the Iraqi government, and the Iraqi government has taken ownership of that problem and is investigating it.  So they did exactly what they should have done.

SEC. RUMSFELD:  But I don't think you mean they have an obligation to physically stop it; it's to report it.

GEN. PACE:  If they are physically present when inhumane treatment is taking place, sir, they have an obligation to try to stop it.

In a laughable demonstration of Rumsfeld Derangement Syndrome, some on the left declared that Pace's correction demonstrated that the Secretary has "lost the military" and this is only the first crack in the crumbling facade of the Pentagon.  Here's the thing, though--after this exchange the briefing went on with Pace and Rumsfeld answering questions jointly and joking about Pace's inability to come up with an alternative to Rumsfeld's newly-banned term "insurgent."  What those who are so eager to see conflict in this relationship are willfully ignoring is that Rumsfeld hand-picked Pace for his current post after they worked closely together for four years, and they're personal friends to boot.  For me, this demonstrates that Pace is perfectly comfortable correcting Rumsfeld when he's wrong, and that Rumsfeld doesn't mind being corrected.  That's the kind of relationship we want between the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and I predict their partnership will prove one of the most successful in the history of our military.

Even more impressive was Pace's response to a question about the military's use of white phosphorus in Iraq.  The question began, "in its lead editorial this morning, The New York Times takes issue with you and the Bush administration for the way the United States is waging this war..."  Rumsfeld interrupted to hit that softball ("They have done that almost every day since it started.  We're not going to hang our hats on that, a New York Times editorial!  My goodness...I'm stunned!"), but the reporter persisted: "in its final paragraph or so, it [the editorial] takes particular issue with the use of white phosphorus in urban areas.  And based on what we have learned so far, have you banned the use of "Willy Pete" or are you considering banning it?  Or will it continue to be used?"

Rumsfeld immediately deferred to General Pace, who stole the show by quietly explaining what white phosphorus is designed to do in a theater of war:

White phosphorus is a legitimate tool of the military.  It is used for two primary purposes.  One is to mark a location for strike by an aircraft, for example.  The other is to be used -- because it does create white smoke -- to be used as a screening agent so that you can move your forces without being seen by the enemy...it is well within the law of war to use those weapons as they are being used for marking and for screening...No armed force in the world goes to greater effort than your armed force to protect civilians and to be very precise in the way we apply our power.  A bullet goes through skin even faster than white phosphorus does.  So I would rather have the proper instrument applied at the proper time as precisely as possible to get the job done in a way that kills as many of the bad guys as possible and does as little collateral damage as possible.  That is just the nature of warfare.

Rumsfeld said, "Let's see if there's a New York Times editorial quoting General Pace [on this] tomorrow."

Of course there wasn't, and Pace's answer demonstrated the basic disconnect between the liberal media and the conservative military: the media do not want to admit that there is an aspect to warfare in which people get killed.  The reality is that war is a violent business, and terrible things happen when we try to kill the bad guys before they kill us.

And then there's Pace's speech to the National Defense University on Thursday.  The whole speech (and the subsequent Q&A) deserves a read, but this was my favorite part:

A question that I get frequently is: Wouldn't we all just be better off if we just let them alone? The answer that I give is: That would be nice if it would work, but that's not the world we live in. On September 11th, 2001, we were leaving them alone. That was the day we realized in the United States that we were at war.

Our enemies had declared war on us years before, but the attacks in New York, in the skies over Pennsylvania and here in Washington, D.C. brought home very clearly to us that we were at war.

So I say to those now who say, if we just stop fighting in Iraq, if we just stop fighting in Afghanistan, if we just stopped worrying about and chasing the terrorists -- that this would go away -- I say you need to get out and read what our enemies have said. Remember Hitler. Remember he wrote Mein Kampf. He said in writing exactly what his plan was, and we collectively ignored that to our great detriment. Now, our enemies have said publicly on film, on the Internet their goal is to destroy our way of life. No equivocation on their part.

They're not saying if you stay home, we will not come after you. They are saying their goal is to rid the Middle East of all foreigners. Then, overthrow all governments that are not friendly to them, which means every single one of those governments. Then, to use that base as a way to spread their terrorism and their oppression across the globe to include a map that shows 100 years from now that the entire globe will be under their domination. I say that to you even though you know it, because your service and all those others in uniform and not in uniform serving this country and all of our friends and neighbors around the world are the ones who are going to make a difference, and why it's important for us to realize that there is no option other than victory.

Later in the questions, Pace noted that there had been a conscious decision on the part of the military to draw back from publicity after Iraq became sovereign in June, 2004 so that the Iraqis could become the official face of their government.  While he supports the policy, he admits that the military may have "stepped back a little too far" in the U.S. and that they need to be much more aggressive about explaining the progress that has been made.

Pace made an excellent start in this effort last week.  The General refused to let our soldiers be demonized for using the appropriate weapons for their job, demonstrated that he understands it's more important for his boss to be right than to save his face, and, most of all, he helped the President win this war on terror both in Iraq and on the homefront.  Good show.