Weekend Reading

I am keeping it simple this weekend since I have no intention of "working" on Halloween. Here is what's on tap for this weekend:

RAND: The Phoenix Program and Contemporary Counterinsurgency

I've been fascinated with the Phoenix Program since purchasing Mark Moyar's book "Phoenix and the Birds of Prey." What sold me on reading this RAND report was co=author Austin Long's incredibly detailed CT strategy for Afghanistan over at Foreign Policy.

Iraq: Strategic Reconciliation, Targeting, and Key Leader Engagement

Say the words "Force Strategic Engagement Cell" in Iraq and you will get some rough looks from grunts and others. The concept is brilliant on paper but the group currently operating may have outlived its usefulness. The U.S. has its hands tied thanks to the security treaty implemented earlier this year. U.S. military members acting like diplomats, holding no authority, and meeting with insurgents just might send the wrong message to the Iraqi government. Prime Minister Maliki nearly blew a gasket earlier this year where according to the NY Times:

Iraq’s government said Thursday that it was demanding explanations from the United States and Turkey about a protocol signed this year between an American official and a representative of a group of Iraqi Sunni insurgents in Istanbul as a precursor to negotiations between the two sides.

The Iraqi government said in a statement that the protocol amounts to “an interference in Iraq’s internal political affairs” and that it was expecting “clear explanations” from American and Turkish officials at the embassies in Baghdad.

Apparently that was not the first time this year U.S. reconciliation efforts stepped on the Iraqi government's toes.

On April 18, American and British officials from a secretive unit called the Force Strategic Engagement Cell flew to Jordan to try to persuade one of Saddam Hussein’s top generals — the commander of the final defense of Baghdad in 2003 — to return home to resume efforts to make peace with the new Iraq.

But the Iraqi commander, Lt. Gen. Raad Majid al-Hamdani, rebuffed them.

After a year of halting talks mediated by the Americans, he said, he concluded that Iraq’s leader, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, simply was not interested in reconciliation.

I am looking forward to the Strategic Studies Institute read since the FSEC model will likely be recreated in Afghanistan; hopefully by those with more than a few months background. Conventional forces have the bad habit of prioritizing filling billets over finding quality personnel. I have deep concerns over conventional forces handling a mission so critical to counterinsurgency. As proven by events noted above from the past several months, the FSEC model has the potential to do more harm than good.