Operation Inherent Resolve - Creating Terrorists

According to legislation passed by Congress in January 2013, the position of Lead Inspector General was created to oversee America's overseas contingency operations.  Under this legislation, the Inspectors General of the Department of Defense, Department of State and United States Agency for International Development must supply reports to Congress on a quarterly basis for certain operations.  The most recent report supplies us with a very interesting look at the American-led Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) which has the following mission:

"In conjunction with partner forces Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) defeats ISIS in designated areas of Iraq and Syria and sets conditions for follow-on operations to increase regional stability."

In Iraq, American forces are partnered with the Iraqi Army and Air Force, the Counter Terrorism Service, the Federal Police and the Kurdish Peshmerga.  In Syria, American forces are partnered with the Syrian Democratic Forces and their partner, the Syrian Arab Coalition.  Their mission includes:

"...disrupting the Islamic State's ability to command and control fighters, remove their safe havens, interrupt their revenue streams that fund their operations, destroy their equipment and kill their fighters.  The ultimate goal is to eliminate their effectiveness as an organized force on the battlefield."

The Department of Defense has repeatedly stated that its goal under Operation Inherent Resolve is to achieve the "enduring defeat" of the Islamic State.

According to Syria Live Map, ISIS is now controlling a relatively small part of the sparsely populated border frontier between Syria and Iraq:

This is a substantial improvement over the presence of ISIS back in October 2015 as shown on this map:

One would think that Operation Inherent Resolve has been a resounding success.  According to the most recent report from the Lead Inspector General (Lead IG), ISIS now controls only one percent of the territory that it once held in Syria.  However, there are substantial caveats to this success which is reflected in the Lead Inspector General's most recent report.  Let's look at them in turn:

1.) ISIS has now moved underground and has maintained its bureaucratic structures and fund- raising   abilities (i.e. drug trafficking, extortion, cash reserves) in place.  The Lead IG notes that this has raised concerns about the ability of the Iraqi Security Forces to operate without the assistance of the United States, raising the concerns of a resurgence of the Islamic State.  This raises questions about the "enduring defeat" of ISIS and how long it will be necessary for American troops to remain in both Iraq and Syria.

2.) The Islamic State's retention of desert terrain along the border frontier between Syria and Iraq allows their fighters to launch insurgency-style attacks against U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic forces in northeast Syria.  ISIS also retains its ability to operate in Iraq between Anbar and Diyala provinces with both desert and mountain terrain making it difficult for Iraqi Security Forces to defeat them.  The report notes that it could take years to eliminate ISIS from rural Syria and Iraq.

3.) A lower than expected outflow of foreign fighters from ISIS suggests that many of them are hiding in plain sight in sympathetic communities in both Iraq and Syria.

Let's close this section with a quote from the report:

"With ISIS defeated territorially in Iraq and remaining only in small pockets in Syria, the United States and the United Nations this quarter emphasized concerns that the terrorist organization was successfully moving underground.  A report drafted by a UN Security Council monitoring committee stated in July that ISIS was in the process of “reverting from a proto-State structure to a covert network.”  The report said that despite territorial losses in 2018, ISIS had “rallied,” due in part to a brief loss of momentum by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), and was able to “prepare for the next phase of its evolution into a global covert network.”

The DoD reported to the DoD OIG this quarter that ISIS transitioned to a clandestine insurgency in Iraq and was no longer conducting conventional operations.  In Syria, the DoD said, ISIS continued to function as a “hybrid conventional fighting force”—operating both as soldiers and insurgents—in areas of Syria that remain under its control.  The DoD also said ISIS was working to “bolster its sleeper cells” and predicted that ISIS remnants would continue to operate as “geographically dispersed criminal gangs that clandestinely seek to return to insurgent operations.”" (my bold)

It is estimated that ISIS membership still ranges between 20,000 and 30,000 members, roughly equally split between Syria and Iraq.  The ability of these members to take effective actions is classified by the Department of Defense so we have no real idea of their capabilities to rebuild or reinvent themselves as an insurgent force.

In September, Congress appropriated $1.35 billion, down 23 percent from fiscal 2018 levels, to the Counter-ISIS Train and Equip Fund which supports the Department of Defense's fight against ISIS in both Syria and Iraq.  This fund provides assistance to vetted Syrian opposition fighters, the Iraqi Security Forces and the Kurdish Peshmerga.  The Iraqi Security Forces are heavily reliant on American-sourced intelligence operations to launch their attacks against ISIS and the Department of Defense notes that it will take "...a generation of Iraqi officers with continuous exposure to Coalition (i.e. American) advisors to change cultures and institutions that inhibit the establishment of a self-reliant Iraqi fighting force."  In the case of Syria, the sectarian divisions in the nation could make it vulnerable to an ISIS-led insurgency which could bolster ISIS' ability to rebuild itself.   

It is becoming increasingly clear that the Islamic State has evolved from a more-or-less conventional fighting force to an insurgency/terrorist force that likely still retains its abilities to act as both locally and internationally, one of the unintended consequences of meddling in the Middle East.  If Washington is truly serious about eliminating any future threat from ISIS, it appears that the American military will be on the front lines of the conflict for decades to come.  Additionally, given the Islamic State's ability to morph into an insurgency force, one would almost think that Washington has forgotten the hard-learned lessons that were taught by the creation of al Qaeda out of the remains of Afghanistan's anti-Russian mujahideen, wouldn't one?

So much for the ideas of "increasing regional stability" and the "enduring defeat" of ISIS.   

The National Security Agency's Definition of Success in Iraq

Other than this:

...what did it take to make the leadership at the NSA think that the United States efforts in Iraq had been successful?

Thanks to the liberating efforts of Edward Snowden, we now have a glimpse into the mindset of the NSA in February 2005 from this writeup, composed by Major General Richard Quirk, Signals Intelligence Director, which appeared on the SIDtoday internal website:

There you go, another confirmation that the Iraq war was "Mission Accomplished" as early as the first "democratic election" held in Iraq during January 2005.  This, despite the fact that the January 2005 election is widely believed to have led to the disenfranchisement of the Sunni population because of their lack of participation/boycotting of what was seen to be a flawed electoral procedure in which, ultimately, only 58 percent of eligible voters turned out.  It was this disenfranchisement that led to increased Shi'ite - Sunni tensions and made it exremely difficult for the coalition forces to quell the post-election insurgency.  Interestingly, the situation in Iraq prior to and during voting was so violent that the International Mission for Iraqi Elections (IMIE), the monitoring organization for the January 2005 election chose to remain in Amman, Jordan, leaving the in-country ground work up to volunteers who represented the various political parties competing in the election along with non-partisan volunteers who were recruited by non-governmental organizations.   Despite that little setback, here are some of IMIE's observations about this day that was so emotional for Major General Quirk:

"While democratic media norms were not always fully respected, some coverage of opposition parties and candidates on both state and private media was visible or audible. Government events were excessively covered on the pretext of "government business," but the opposition was not totally excluded. There were a number of appearances by opposition candidates. While none of the people contacted to write this report totally condemned Iraqi media election coverage, in future events this coverage needs to be monitored more closely, and equity in access to media must be enforced.

Many newspapers, television and radio stations claim to be independent but have strong links with political parties. Al Iraqiya (IMN), the state television station, seems to have received pressure from authorities outside the station to cover specific stories. However, some radio and television stations with political connections seem to have given their political opponents an opportunity to buy air time and broadcast their messages.

If the use of indelible ink remains a check against duplicate voting for forthcoming electoral events, it may be useful to have the voters cast their ballot before dipping their finger to avoid stained ballots. It was also reported that the ink could be rubbed off with hand lotion or certain types of detergent. While a stain would remain, inexperienced observers and election officials may not have noticed this.

Problems and irregularities that were noted during the polling process resulted typically from a combination of the security conditions, inadequate training of IECI staff, human error and the novelty of, and the resulting unfamiliarity with, complex polling processes. Reported irregularities regarding voter eligibility, and illegal activities or deliberate manipulations by electoral staff and/or political actors, should not be discounted. However, to the extent that such problems occurred randomly through the polling process, they are unlikely to have undermined its integrity or diminished the legitimacy of the election results.

There were some local problems with the tamper evidence bags being used improperly (placed in with the ballots rather than in a separate box to be sent to IECI headquarters) or not being used at all. Also, some ballot boxes were not properly locked.

The reconciliation of all ballots remains a key area for improvement. For example, in Northern Iraq, there were reports of ballot boxes that had been obviously tampered with or stuffed. Specifically, there appear to have been 49 rigged ballot boxes in Ninewa (Mosul), which were sealed with the old seals from the Saddam Hussein regime. Some 10,000 ballots appear to have been stuffed in this way. Far more numerous were the 300 questionable ballot boxes from Erbil containing perhaps 200,000 dubious ballots. (These ballots were investigated at IECI headquarters and rejected, which was a positive final outcome.)

That said, the complaint process also experienced a number of problems. Despite the laudable decisions of the Board to accept complaints by e-mail, and to extend the submission deadlines, a number of remaining obstacles made it difficult for individuals, political entities and organizations to submit complaints. Among the most important were fears for personal safety, travel and communication difficulties, and lack of information about the complaint process. These obstacles might explain in part why so few complaints were filed." (my bold)

Actually, now that I think about it, some of these issues sound like they could have stemmed from the 2016 American presidential election!

It is interesting to see how quickly the NSA leadership was willing to pat itself on the back for a job well done in Iraq.  I guess they were blind to the possibility that their current actions would have a detrimental impact on the future of Iraq.

The Bombing of Iraq - The NSA's Viewpoint

Among the NSA documents that have seen the light of day there are a series of articles from the NSA's internal, private news site, SIDtoday which are being released in batches by The Intercept.  One of these internal documents from January 2004 provides us an insider's glimpse at how the American forces were using intercepted signals intelligence (SIGINT) in the Iraq War.

This top secret document entitled "A Lesson in Personal Accountability" was written by Charles Berlin, the Signals Intelligence Directorate Chief of Staff and was run in SIDtoday as part of its "InSIDer's View of History" series (don't you just love the clever use of the SID acronym?) with pertinent sections highlighted by me:

Mr. Berlin starts out by recounting his experiences with signals intelligence during the Balkans War (aka Operation Joint Endeavour) in the mid-1990s.  He notes that the job of the Signals Intelligence Directorate during the Balkans War was to select targets for the U.S. military, providing them with a range of options for attacks.  He notes that there had "been some mistakes in previous bombings (with civilian losses)".  After personally approving the targets provided by Mr. Berlin and his staff, the Commander in Chief, General Michael Ryan informed Mr. Berlin that commanders now had the legal responsibility for selecting military targets and that if a mistake was made, there was the possibility of a war crimes charge.

In light of his conversation with General Ryan, Mr. Berlin goes on to note the following:

"For us today this lesson is especially important.  The planning cycle for dropping a bomb has compressed from a day to minutes and the criterion for the aiming point has less and less review.  As many of you know, our forces in Iraq are dropping bombs on the strength of SIGINT alone.  We are proud of their confidence in us, but have you ever considered the enormous risk the commanders are assuming in this regard?  Are you ready to share that risk?" (my bold)

What SIGINT was being used to select targets for the U.S. and coalition military forces?  According to another document from the SIDtoday internal NSA news site we find this top secret document entitled "The Rewards of Metadata":

As we can see from this document, the NSA was using metadata (i.e. information about the communications such as time, geographic location, length of call)  rather than the content of those communications) in a process that they define as "information chaining".  In one type of metadata tracking, call chaining, analysts looked at which phone numbers were being called by phone numbers that they were tracking, giving them even more phone numbers to track.  This would allow analysts to determine the relationships between certain groups of people (i.e. in this case, suspected terrorists).  According to the author of the document, SID's use of communications metadata  had led to the capture of "bad guys" including al-Qaeda leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

What is particularly interesting is the volume of metadata/signals intelligence that the NSA had collected.  According to the author, the NSA's corporate call event repository was known as FASCIA II and contained metadata records on telephone, wireless, billing data, high-powered cordless phones and mobile over internet protocol or MoIP.  By early 2004, FASCIA II contained over 85 billion metadata records with daily additions of 125 million records.  FASCIA II had over four years worth of online storage and it was anticipated that it would be able to handle over 205 million metadata records daily and store up to seven years of metadata records on-line and three years of metadata records in storage.

All of this suggests that the NSA was inundated with massive volumes of signals intelligence data that had to be processed extremely quickly so that targets could be selected and provided to coalition forces in Iraq so they could launch attacks before the targets changed location.  There was one significant fly in the ointment.  According to this document from SIDtoday in June 2004, the NSA simply did not have enough Cryptologic Language Analysts with skills in Arabic since that is the language of choice in the Muslim world:

Note that according to the author, in 2004, only half of the missions that were part of the Global War on Terror were being undertaken by NSA Crypotological Analysts that had the minimum qualifications necessary to understand the complex communications used by the "terrorists" that were being targeted.

Looking back to the first part of this posting, given what we know about the volume of data that the NSA was dealing with and the lack of linguistically capable analysts, it is rather shocking that the coalition forces in Iraq were comfortable using SIGINT alone to target where they wanted to drop their bombs.

Donald Trump on the War in Iraq

While the first debate with Hillary Clinton would have lead viewers and voters to believe that Donald Trump fully backed the war with Iraq, here is a clip from January 2003 showing that his support for the actions in Iraq was lukewarm at best:

It is pretty obvious that his backing was far less certain than Hillary Clinton's October 2002 Senate vote on House Joint Resolution 114 (Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002) which gave President George Bush blanket authority to take whatever actions he deemed necessary to put an end to Iraq's supposed accumulation of weapons of mass destruction.  For completeness sake, here is a screen capture showing the votes of all members of the Senate:

Apparently, the truth depends on your perspective in the 2016 presidential election cycle.