The Boston Globe April 26, 2003
Pentagon aims to implement war lessons quickly
By Robert Schlesinger
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is moving swiftly to identify and implement the military lessons of the Iraq war, aiming to make postwar changes faster than after any previous conflict and soon enough to affect spending decisions in Congress this year.
Now that U.S. forces have prevailed with speed and precision on the battlefield, Pentagon officials want to build in those qualities to their war-fighting strategies and choices of weapons systems. One goal is to shape military funding for fiscal 2004, meaning the Defense Department would have to complete its standard postwar review within about six months. In the past, the process has taken many more months, or even years.
While Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has declined to specify what lessons he has taken from the war, other advocates of his style of fast and flexible forces have made some suggestions. Those defense specialists say the overwhelming U.S. dominance in the air may make large numbers of the F/A-22 fighter jet appear to be unnecessary, and the surprising vulnerability of Army Apache helicopters to small-arms fire could call into question the usefulness of the Commanche stealth helicopter.
Early in the war, 30 to 40 Apache helicopters on a mission to attack a Republican Guard division near Baghdad were forced to retreat after encountering heavy anti-aircraft fire, which brought down one chopper and damaged nearly all of them. Despite that, military officials have defended the Apache's overall performance in the war.
"This is the Pentagon bureaucratic version of the war plan in Iraq," said Daniel Goure, a former Defense Department official currently with the Lexington Institute, a conservative research group. "This is part of a bureaucratic campaign unlike any other in DOD's history."
The Pentagon's Joint Forces Command has for several years been responsible for compiling lessons from major exercises and operations. It is led by Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, who until recently was Rumsfeld's top military assistant.
Before the war, Joint Forces Command sent a team of 30 senior officers to U.S. Central Command in Qatar, which served as military headquarters during the conflict. Those officers, led by a brigadier general, are bringing data back to other analysts at their headquarters in Norfolk, Va.
They plan to turn around "quick wins" that can be immediately adopted, as well as longer-range adjustments, said Army Lt. Col. Wayne Shanks, a Joint Forces spokesman.
Rumsfeld's focus on transforming the military led to the cancellation of the Army's $11 billion Crusader artillery system last year, which brought intense criticism and resistance from Congress and some Pentagon staffers. While there was talk that Rumsfeld might seek to cancel other weapons systems such as the F/A-22 jet, the V-22 Osprey aircraft, or the Commanche helicopter, all of them survived. With the lessons of the Iraq victory, Rumsfeld may aim at whole systems, some analysts said.
"This is premeditated," Goure said.
A speedy postwar review would also enable Rumsfeld to prevent others from defining the war's lessons. The importance of heavy armor as opposed to lighter, quicker forces remains open to debate, for example.
"He wants to make sure his version of the war hits the street first," said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org.
Copyright © 2003, Globe Newspaper Company
