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Four submarines go under a transformation to support the United States' global war on terrorism.
By Elaine Helm, Kitsap Sun, 3 Jan 06
by Jason Sherman, InsideDefense.com, January 2, 2006
Strategypage.com, 3 Jan 06
Big Plans, Little Reward, Critics Say
By Lisa Zagaroli, News Observer (NC), 2 JAN 06
New London Day, Published Jan. 1, 2006
Shortage Of Lieutenant Commanders Called Especially Acute
By Andrew Scutro, Navy Times, 9 JAN 06
By David S. Cloud and Jeff Gerth, New York Times, 2 Jan 06
By Keith Bradsher, New York Times, January 2, 2006
Sailors Meet Scots Lifesavers For The First Time
By Marion Scott, Glasgow Sunday Mail, 1 Jan 06
Glasgow Evening Times, 29 Dec 05
A Yankee Class submarine surfaced near Bermuda during the Cold War
The Royal Gazette, January 1, 2006
Four submarines go under a transformation to support the United States' global war on terrorism.
By Elaine Helm, Kitsap Sun, 3 Jan 06
Bremerton -- The first of a new breed of post-Cold War U.S. submarines is quietly moving closer to joining the fleet.
USS Ohio isn't new - it was commissioned in 1981. Its mission, however, has shifted from deterring nuclear attacks to addressing the threat of terrorism.
The Ohio entered Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in 2002 as a Trident ballistic missile submarine, or SSBN. It finished initial testing of its new capabilities Dec. 19, 2005, as a guided missile submarine, or SSGN.
In February, the Navy is scheduled to hold a ceremony at the Ohio's homeport, Naval Base Kitsap at Bangor, to recognize the ship's return to service with its metamorphosis complete.
"The SSGN is a transformational program," said Capt. David Norris, the conversion program manager at Naval Sea Systems Command in Washington, D.C. "It allows us to support the Navy's and the United States' global war on terrorism."
The Ohio is the first of four submarines to become an SSGN. Another Bangor-based sub, USS Michigan, is scheduled to finish its conversion in December 2006 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. USS Florida and USS Georgia are scheduled to complete their conversions on the East Coast in April 2006 and August 2007, respectively.
The total cost of the program to convert the four nuclear-powered subs is about $4.1 billion, Norris said.
By refueling and converting the subs rather than decommissioning them, he said, the Navy will add new capabilities to its arsenal for far less time and money than starting from scratch. Refueling adds about 20 years to the operational lifespan of each sub.
"We're getting a brand-new ship at about half the cost," Norris said.
The difference between the SSBNs and SSGNs is more than just one letter, though both types of submarine belong to the Ohio class.
The SSBNs' 24 missile tubes are designed to carry Trident D-5 missiles, which is why Ohio-class submarines are often referred to as Tridents.
That name no longer applies to the SSGNs.
Twenty-two of the SSGNs' 24 missile tubes are dedicated to conventional, long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles, up to 154 total. The remaining two tubes can deliver special operations forces or unmanned underwater and aerial vehicles.
Each sub will have living and training facilities for 66 Navy SEALS or other special operations personnel.
The SSGN transformation also includes an advanced radio room on each sub. Norris said the new communication technology, analogous to a high-speed Internet connection, allows better connectivity between a deployed ship and stateside commanders.
The radio room improvements also would facilitate an SSGN's operation as a joint command center. An Army brigadier general and his staff, for example, could come onboard and direct ground operations from offshore, Norris explained.
The Ohio's commander and crew had their first chance to test the ship's new features during sea trials in December. Cmdr. Michael Cockey compared the process with "taking a new car off the lot and running it through its paces."
"We had some new systems that had only been tested on computer," Cockey said. "We're discovering new things every time we go to sea, and the guys are excited about that."
The Ohio currently has about 225 crew members, the size of about one and a half Trident crews. By the end of 2006, Cockey said, the ship will add enough sailors to split into two crews of about 155 to 160 each.
Even after its return to service in February, the Ohio won't be ready again for deployment until mid-2007, Norris said.
"Our job in the next year is to make sure systems work well in an operational setting," Cockey said.
Unlike SSBNs, the Ohio and other SSGNs will operate primarily from Guam and other forward bases. Crews will continue to be based at Bangor on the West Coast and Kings Bay, Ga., on the East Coast, but will switch several times overseas during a 15-month cycle before the submarines return to their homeports for 100 days at a time.
The Ohio conversion at PSNS was accomplished under a public-private partnership between the public shipyard and Electric Boat, a subsidiary of General Dynamics.
More than 1,000 people at the shipyard, including 300 to 400 Electric Boat workers, were involved in the project. Cockey praised them for accomplishing the work on schedule.
"It's very rewarding for me as a Navy officer to know there's so many people working so hard to get the boat out to sea on time," he said.
by Jason Sherman, InsideDefense.com, January 2, 2006
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is summoning his top military and civilian leaders from around the world to Washington next week to discuss the final shape of the Quadrennial Defense Review.
Rumsfeld is scheduled to assemble the Strategic Planning Council -- which includes his Senior Level Review Group plus the combatant commanders -- on Jan. 11 to discuss "QDR outputs," according to briefing slides used by Ryan Henry, the principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy, in a Dec. 9 speech to Wall Street analysts.
These "outputs" include budget decisions reflected in the nearly complete fiscal year 2007 Pentagon spending request as well as a raft of new policy positions that will be spelled out in a QDR report that is being drafted by Henry's office. It is due to Congress next month.
The assessment will feature a new concept for "tailored deterrence" and a modified strategy for preparing to fight two major wars, as InsideDefense.com reported last month.
Next week's meeting will be part of a larger convention of senior U.S. military leaders from around the globe that Rumsfeld calls together roughly three times each year. The assembly, previously called a "combatant commanders conference," is now referred to as a "senior leaders conference," according to Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col. John Skinner.
"There is a senior leaders conference scheduled for the second week in January," Skinner said today. "While we don't discuss the agenda for such conferences ahead of time, clearly the Quadrennial Defense Review is important and that will be an item of discussion, as well as many other things."
The congressionally mandated QDR has wide-ranging ramifications for the military services' modernization programs, but the final report -- like previous QDR reports in 1997 and 2001 -- will not itemize changes to the Pentagon's weapon system procurement accounts, Henry said in early December.
Instead, a detailed accounting of near-term alterations to aircraft, ship and ground vehicle acquisition accounts stemming from the Quadrennial Defense Review is embodied in a series of classified budget documents issued last month. Those documents give shape to the Pentagon's fiscal year 2007 spending request.
When complete, the QDR also will provide a blueprint for investment decisions this spring, when the Defense Department begins constructing its fiscal year 2008 to 2013 spending plan.
Still, Rumsfeld has directed that compelling insights from the nearly complete QDR be used to adjust select elements of the Pentagon's FY-07 budget request, which is in the final days of being assembled.
For the duration of the 10-month review, participants and observers were bracing for dramatic changes to the military's modernization accounts. Specifically, many Defense Department insiders and defense analysts expected the QDR to serve up significant cuts to weapon systems optimized to fighting conventional adversaries in order to harvest resources to invest in new capabilities to deal with irregular, catastrophic and disruptive challenges. However, the budget decisions issued last month contain few deep cuts to the services' major modernization programs, according to Pentagon officials.
Along with these investment actions, Pentagon officials in recent weeks have begun drawing back the curtain on new policies to be detailed in the Quadrennial Defense Review. These are the building blocks for future U.S. war plans, modernization decisions and force structure changes.
Among the most fundamental is a plan to advance a new war planning strategy that retains the requirement to fight two major conflicts but includes refinements designed to prepare the military to deal with homeland defense and the global war on terrorism, said Pentagon officials involved in the review.
This will reflect a modest adjustment to the force planning construct established in the 2001 QDR -- including fewer changes than some senior Pentagon officials leading the review sought last summer.
"The new construct will just be a refinement of '1-4-2-1,'" said a Pentagon official involved in the review on Dec. 19.
The "1-4-2-1" force planning construct called for the Defense Department to defend the United States (1); maintain forces capable of deterring aggression in Europe, Northeast Asia, the East Asian littoral, and Southwest Asia and the Middle East (4); be ready to simultaneously combat aggression in two of these regions (2); and maintain a capability to "win decisively" in one of these two conflicts (1).
The Defense Department intends to retain the ability to wage two simultaneous major combat operations, a bedrock of U.S. military planning since the 1990s, while retaining the ability to conduct a "regime change" against one of these enemies.
It will call for the Defense Department to maintain enough forces and equipment to conduct "steady state" operations in each category, as well as to surge forces to respond to crisis in each category.
Last spring, during a series of high-level roundtable discussions central to the QDR, senior officials in the Office of the Secretary of Defense questioned the relevance of "1-4-2-1" to the current challenges facing the military. Decisions regarding the force planning construct have wide-ranging implications for the entire defense enterprise. It forms a core justification for the composition of the armed forces as well as the number -- and types -- of ships, aircraft, trucks and tanks the services require.
Sources said the new force planning construct to be spelled out next month is designed to better account for the post-Sept. 11, 2001, strategic landscape by focusing on three areas: homeland defense, the global war on terrorism and conventional campaigns.
Another elemental component of defense policy that will be updated in the QDR is the U.S. approach to deterrence, Henry said.
The Defense Department will develop new capabilities to tailor its decades-old deterrence tools -- namely the threat of nuclear and conventional military force -- to deal effectively with new threats facing the United States, including violent extremists and terrorist networks.
Henry spoke of the new thinking on deterrence on Dec. 14, at a conference in Washington, DC, sponsored by the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis and the Tufts University Fletcher School. He said the Quadrennial Defense Review will roll out the concept of "tailored deterrence" to guide policy and investment decisions related to the military's strategic and conventional forces.
Specifically, the QDR will call for new efforts to better understand what motivates terrorist networks and violent extremists -- the type of adversaries that are vexing U.S. forces and Pentagon war planners in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The key thing here is understanding an alien culture, and an alien way of thinking, an alien value system," Henry said last month.
Similar efforts to understand Soviet leaders and organizations during the Cold War were fraught with flaws, Henry acknowledged.
"When we look to the future, these alien [terrorist] networks will be even more difficult" challenges, he said, adding that the concept of "tailored deterrence" is still evolving.
Despite these challenges, he said deterrence would remain a cornerstone of the U.S. defense posture.
"We think deterrence is still viable," Henry said. "It is much more effective and efficient than the actual exercising of power."
Deterrence is used to keep adversaries from acting against U.S. interests by denying them benefits or imposing great costs, elements that Henry said are relevant in dealing with current challenges facing the United States.
The QDR will organize threats requiring deterrence into three categories, Henry said: near-peer military challengers, such as a future China; regional challengers like a nuclear-armed North Korea; and terrorist networks and violent extremists.
Conventional and nuclear capabilities in the U.S. arsenal are well suited to dealing with the first two categories, Henry said. However, deterring transnational actors with the means to harm the United States, its allies or interests is the "hardest nut" to crack.
"Can we come up with deterrent capabilities that span that spectrum of threats?" he asked. "That is something that we are embarking on coming out of the QDR, and developing the capability sets to be able to look at that."
The Defense Department will work to develop three capabilities to put in place an effective deterrent against these three threats: the means to determine what assets an adversary holds dear and wants to protect; an ability to identify which military tools can be used to threaten those assets; and an effective means of communicating to adversaries that the military can target their most important assets and destroy them.
"Many people say they can't be deterred," Henry said of suicide bombers, one weapon in the arsenal of some extremists. "But if you deconstruct what a terrorist network is and what they need to successfully accomplish their mission, then we can see that there might be points of access to their value chain that we can impact. We, along with some other folks, are trying to think this through."
Strategypage.com, 3 Jan 06
January 3, 2006: It will cost $15.5 million to fix problems discovered during the USS Virginia’s shakedown cruise. This is not unusual, especially for the first ship in a class, and especially with a nuclear attack submarine. It will take about a year to complete all the work. The Virginia contains a lot of new technology, and each one costs about $2.2 billion. The Virginia’s will replace the Lost Angeles class attack subs. The Virginia is about the same size as the Los Angeles class boats, but uses more modern technology. However, the navy is not happy with the ship builders, who are about 30 percent over budget, and, in the eyes of many navy commanders, sloppy.
Big Plans, Little Reward, Critics Say
By Lisa Zagaroli, News Observer (NC), 2 JAN 06
Navy sonar technician Dave Levasseur needs the right kind of seascape to practice finding submarines. Pilot John Leenhouts says a clearer, open air space is crucial to being warready. When the U.S. Navy went searching for solutions that would help both men, each time it turned to North Carolina.
The state is positioned to play a growing role in the Navy's long-term strategic future. The service branch is looking to North Carolina as the potential home for a sonar training range and a jet landing field -- projects that represent an investment of nearly $200 million during the next 10 years.
But the Navy's designs for North Carolina are meeting resistance, particularly from critics who fear environmental and economic damage with little payback in terms of jobs.One of the state's most influential lawmakers, Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight, announced late last month that he would oppose the sonar training range.
Other lawmakers, such as U.S. Rep. G.K. Butterfield Jr. of Wilson, have questioned the location of the proposed landing field, which is within five miles of a large bird sanctuary, the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge. Huge flocks of birds fly over the proposed runway site to forage for food in nearby farm fields, creating a potential hazard for the jets.
But the state has generally been welcoming to the military. North Carolina is home to six military bases, including the Army's huge Fort Bragg base in Fayetteville. Marine installations include Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock and Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville.
The number of Navy-Marine personnel in North Carolina has grown 18 percent, to 61,011, in the past five years, compared with 2.1 percent growth nationally, federal budget documents show. And total Navy/Marine expenditures in the state went up 50.9 percent from 2000, to $3.3 billion in 2004, compared with a 23.8 percent increase across the country, according to the budgets.
But most of that investment has been from the Marines; North Carolina has had little pure Navy presence.
"The Navy is looking more and more to where they have a future," said U.S. Rep. Walter Jones, a Farmville Republican who serves on the House Armed Services Committee. He noted that the state was largely spared in the most recent round of federal base closings.
Navy changes tactics
When Senior Chief Petty Officer Dave Levasseur joined the Navy 21 years ago, the job of sonar technician was in high demand. He spent his time at sea aboard surface ships listening for Soviet submarines with passive sonar.
"We practiced all the time and we were really good at ASW ," said Levasseur of the U.S. Fleet Forces Command in Norfolk, Va., referring to anti-submarine warfare. But when the Cold War ended, he said, "we didn't have anything to chase around."
In recent years, the Navy has shifted its attention from the open ocean to dangers close to shore.
Submarines operated by North Korea, China and Iran make the below-sea threats very real, said John Pike, director of Globalsecurity.org, a nonprofit organization that focuses on security.
"If China was trying to blockade Taiwan, or if Iran was trying to sink tankers coming from Kuwait, we'd need to do something about it," Pike said.
Navy officials have said they settled on North Carolina as the preferred site for an undersea warfare training range for several reasons, including the climate, the water depth and its location between air stations in Norfolk and Mayport, Fla. In addition, the nearby ocean activity most closely mimics the seas where Navy vessels may be called to duty.
"Without an instrumented range on the East Coast, the ship can think they got the submarine, the submarine can think they got the ship, and in reality it could be one or the other," said Jene Nissen, a retired Navy commander and a civilian sonar and acoustics policy manager.
The sonar range is questioned by environmentalists, who cite growing evidence that the mid-frequency pulses or "pings" it emits have harmed whales and other marine life. It also is viewed with alarm by fishermen and business owners who make their living off the water.
"This facility will have a long-lasting negative impact on our state fisheries and coastal tourism, with no economic or environmental benefit to the citizens of North Carolina," Basnight said in a letter to the state congressional delegation.
Critics note that there would be limited economic benefit in terms of jobs. The sonar range would bring few military personnel to the state; the building that would collect sonar transmissions would usually be unmanned.
North Carolina's senators and several Congress members whose districts are close to shore say they haven't decided whether to welcome the facility. Jones and Rep. Mike McIntyre, a Democrat from Lumberton, called for and won an extension of the period allowed for public comment.
The Navy first set Dec. 28 as the cutoff for public comment, but late last month extended it to Jan. 30. While the North Carolina site is the Navy's first choice, it also says that sites near Jacksonville, Fla., and Wallops Island, Va., meet all its criteria.
Runway also stalled
Finding a suitable location over environmental objections is also stalling the Navy's other proposed project for North Carolina. The undeveloped land and clear skies of Washington and Beaufort counties are a sanctuary for tundra swans and snow geese.
That's also what took the Navy there looking to buy 30,000 acres and build an $186 million runway where its aircraft carrier jet pilots can practice takeoffs and landings. Opposition from neighbors and environmentalists has resulted in lawsuits. They say the Navy's environmental study was flawed, and contend that birds from the neighboring wildlife refuge would collide with jets, causing crashes.
The Navy says it needs the new landing field to move training from Oceana Naval Air Station in Virginia Beach, which has become inefficient and dangerous because of local development.
"It's right up to the fence line," said retired Navy Cmdr. Hank Chase, whose job included reviewing civilian encroachment on bases, relocation of facilities and base closings.
The situation at Oceana is so critical that it grabbed the attention of the Base Realignment and Closure Commission, which threatened to close the base if it doesn't meet a series of demands to alleviate encroachment in the coming months.
Airspace congestion and noise abatement restrictions were not only a risk to the community, but they also threatened the quality of training for pilots, according to John Craig, operations officer at Oceana's Strike Fighter Weapons School Atlantic before retiring, told the base closure commission.
John Leenhouts, a retired Navy captain in Florida who also testified before the base closure commission, said in an interview that he suspects that the landing field planned for North Carolina is really the first step toward creating a replacement for Oceana.
Cecil Field in Florida began as an outlying landing field before becoming an air base, Leenhouts said. "They'll never admit it," he says of the Navy. "But it's what I've concluded after candid conversations with military leaders."
According to documents provided to the base closure commission, the Pentagon ran budget analyses of several options involving an Oceana closure, such as moving all of its functions to Moody Air Force Base in Georgia and to the defunct Cecil in Florida. It also considered finding a landing field that could be expanded to a new master jet base in the future, and relocating to a new, unoccupied site. But a specific scenario naming North Carolina as the site for a new base wasn't on the table.
New London Day, Published Jan. 1, 2006
Groton— Lordnell Baptiste Jr., a Electronics Technician Second Class, has been selected as Service Person of the Month of December.
Baptiste, who enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 18, 1999, reported to Naval Submarine Support Center in September 2004. He attended William E. Grady Technical Vocational High School and Kingsborough Community College in Brooklyn.
Baptiste has coordinated more than 450 submarine arrivals and departures to the submarine base, His diligence in maintaining the Port Operations database ensured the submarine movements to and from Groton submarine base are conducted with the utmost professionalism.
Shortage Of Lieutenant Commanders Called Especially Acute
By Andrew Scutro, Navy Times, 9 JAN 06
Short a third of the lieutenant commanders it needs, Naval Special Warfare Command wants the authority to spot-promote lieutenants.
This is just one measure the command has explored to fill the critical need for officers qualified in special warfare, said Cmdr. Jeff Bender, spokesman for Naval Special Warfare Command in Coronado, Calif.
While SEALs are key to fighting global terrorism, the number of officers among them remains small.
Indeed, according to Navy figures released in June, other communities dwarf them in end strength. According to that report there were 8,316 surface warfare officers, 3,963 submarine officers, and 9,484 pilots — while SEAL officers numbered a mere 617.
Special Warfare has 630 authorized officer billets, including warrant and limited-duty officers. The SEAL community has been perennially undermanned. Current plans are to grow the community of 2,500 by the equivalent of two teams, or 500 SEALs, in three years. But while the larger community grows in strength, the shortage of SEAL-qualified lieutenant commanders is particularly acute.
Only 90 of 138 authorized 0-4 SEAL billets are filled, a rate of 66 percent, according to Bender. Officials blame the shortage on low retention of junior officers in previous years. With fewer officers in the pipeline, Bender said, "increased SEAL officer requirements" mean billets have gone unfilled. There are 999 available SEAL slots every year, but that number is rarely met. Seventy-two of the 999 slots are for officers, up from 50 a year ago.
The attrition rate at initial training, known as Basic Under-water Demolition/SEAL, runs at a steady 75 percent. Enlisted-student attrition runs at 77 percent. Officers drop out at a rate of 27 percent.
To grow the SEAL force to 3,000 over the next three years, recruiters have to screen candidates early for the levels of fitness required. Getting physically fit sailors in the door is one thing, but to cure the shortage of mid-grade officers, Special Warfare Command will ask for the authority to spot promote lieutenants now filling lieutenant commander billets, Bender said.
Bonuses sweeten the pot
On top of promotion opportunity, there's money to be had for SEAL officers who stay. "We continue to pay [Naval Special Warfare] Officer Continuation Pay to officers in the six to14 years of service' range," he said. A one-year commitment earns a $6,000 bonus. There's a $10,000-a-year bonus for three years, and $15,000 a year extra for five years.
Retention has not been a problem; this year, only two O-4s asked to separate, and two lieutenant commanders died. But since the community is so small, "the loss of even a few causes a considerable ripple effect," Bender said.
What's more, as the number of SEAL officer billets has increased, there haven't been officers enough to fill them. Luckily, officers from other communities decide to trade their khakis for cammies.
"Last year we accessed 65 new officers into the community, 16 of those lateral transfers from the fleet," Bender said.
He added that those officers must enter as ensigns or lieutenants junior grade, because of required SEAL career milestones, such as leading a platoon or being an assistant officer-in-charge. The dire need for special operators is reflected in selection board guidance for 2006 active-duty officer promotions. Those with special warfare experience are to be given close scrutiny, according to the guidance.
"Due to world events and the emphasis on fighting a global terrorist threat, the board shall give due consideration to those officers who have experience through assignments with special operations forces, including, but not limited to, those assigned to Naval Special Warfare command and joint special operations units," the guidance said.
By David S. Cloud and Jeff Gerth, New York Times, 2 Jan 06
WASHINGTON - A Pentagon contractor that paid Iraqi newspapers to print positive articles written by American soldiers has also been compensating Sunni religious scholars in Iraq in return for assistance with its propaganda work, according to current and former employees.
The Lincoln Group, a Washington-based public relations company, was told early in 2005 by the Pentagon to identify religious leaders who could help produce messages that would persuade Sunnis in violence-ridden Anbar Province to participate in national elections and reject the insurgency, according to a former employee.
Since then, the company has retained three or four Sunni religious scholars to offer advice and write reports for military commanders on the content of propaganda campaigns, the former employee said. But documents and Lincoln executives say the company's ties to religious leaders and dozens of other prominent Iraqis is aimed also at enabling it to exercise influence in Iraqi communities on behalf of clients, including the military.
"We do reach out to clerics," Paige Craig, a Lincoln executive vice president, said in an interview. "We meet with local government officials and with local businessmen. We need to have relationships that are broad enough and deep enough that we can touch all the various aspects of society."
He declined to discuss specific projects the company has with the military or commercial clients.
"We have on staff people who are experts in religious and cultural matters," Mr. Craig said. "We meet with a wide variety of people to get their input. Most of the people we meet with overseas don't want or need compensation, they want a dialogue."
Internal company financial records show that Lincoln spent about $144,000 on the program from May to September. It is unclear how much of this money, if any, went to the religious scholars, whose identities could not be learned. The amount is a tiny portion of the contracts, worth tens of millions, that Lincoln has received from the military for "information operations," but the effort is especially sensitive.
Sunni religious scholars are considered highly influential within the country's minority Sunni population. Sunnis form the core of the insurgency. Each of the religious scholars underwent vetting before being brought into the program to ensure that they were not involved in the insurgency, said a former employee, who spoke on condition of anonymity because Lincoln's Pentagon contract prohibits workers from discussing their activities. The identities of the Sunni scholars have been kept secret to prevent insurgent reprisals, and they were never taken to Camp Victory, the American base outside Baghdad where Lincoln employees work with military personnel.
Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a spokesman for the American military in Baghdad, declined to comment.
After the disclosure in November that the military used Lincoln to plant articles written by American troops in Iraqi newspapers, the Pentagon ordered an investigation, led by Navy Rear Adm. Scott Van Buskirk.
Army Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top commander in Iraq, said that a preliminary assessment made shortly after the military's information campaign was disclosed concluded that the Army was "operating within our authorities and the appropriate legal procedures."
Admiral Van Buskirk has finished his investigation, several Pentagon officials said, but it has not been made public.
Lincoln recently sought approval from the military to make Sunni religious leaders one of several "target audiences" of the propaganda effort in Iraq. A Lincoln plan titled "Divide and Prosper" presented in October to the Special Operations Command in Tampa, which oversees information operations, suggested that reaching religious leaders was vital for reducing Sunni support for the insurgency.
"Clerics exercise a great deal of influence over the people in their communities and oftentimes it is the religious leaders who incite people to violence and to support the insurgent cause," the company said in the proposal, a copy of which was reviewed by The New York Times.
In some cases, "insurgent groups may provide Sunni leaders with financial compensation in return for that cleric's loyalty and support," the proposal said, adding that religious leaders are motivated by "a need to retain patronage" and a "desire to maintain religious and moral authority."
Unlike in many other Middle Eastern countries, sermons by Iraqi imams are not subject to government control, enabling them to speak "without fear of repercussions," the document said.
The Special Operations Command said in a statement that it did not adopt the Lincoln plan, choosing another contractor's proposal instead. When the Lincoln Group was incorporated in 2004, using the name Iraqex, its stated purpose was to provide support services for business development, trade and investment in Iraq. But the company soon shifted to information warfare and psychological operations, two former employees said. The company was awarded three new Pentagon contracts, worth tens of millions of dollars, they said.
Payments to the scholars were originally part of Lincoln's contract to aid the military with information warfare in Anbar Province. Known as the "Western Missions" contract, it also called for producing radio and television advertisements, Web sites, posters, and for placing advertisements and opinion articles in Iraqi publications. In October, Lincoln was awarded a new contract by the Pentagon for work in Iraq, including continued contact with Muslim scholars.
Lincoln has also turned to American scholars and political consultants for advice on the content of the propaganda campaign in Iraq, records indicate. Michael Rubin, a Middle East scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington research organization, said he had reviewed materials produced by the company during two trips to Iraq within the past two years.
"I visited Camp Victory and looked over some of their proposals or products and commented on their ideas," Mr. Rubin said in an e-mailed response to questions about his links to Lincoln. "I am not nor have I been an employee of the Lincoln Group. I do not receive a salary from them."
He added: "Normally, when I travel, I receive reimbursement of expenses including a per diem and/or honorarium." But Mr. Rubin would not comment further on how much in such payments he may have received from Lincoln.
Mr. Rubin was quoted last month in The New York Times about Lincoln's work for the Pentagon placing articles in Iraqi publications: "I'm not surprised this goes on," he said, without disclosing his work for Lincoln. "Especially in an atmosphere where terrorists and insurgents - replete with oil boom cash - do the same. We need an even playing field, but cannot fight with both hands tied behind our backs."
By Keith Bradsher, New York Times, January 2, 2006
HONG KONG, Jan. 1 - President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan called Sunday for increased arms purchases and warned against greater economic ties to mainland China, in a televised speech that silenced months of speculation that he might soon seek to improve relations across the Taiwan Strait.
The speech was Mr. Chen's first major policy address since his Democratic Progressive Party fared badly in islandwide municipal elections on Dec. 3. His party favors greater political independence from the mainland.
The Nationalist Party, which favors closer relations with Beijing, did much better in those elections. The Nationalists have been riding a surge in popularity since the departing chairman, Lien Chan, visited the mainland in late April. He retired last summer.
But Mr. Chen made clear on Sunday in his annual New Year's Day address that Taiwanese policy had not changed fundamentally. He used several politically charged phrases that appeal to independence advocates in Taiwan but are likely to offend mainland China. He also urged the legislature to approve his long-stalled plans to buy more weapons from the United States and raised again the possibility of a referendum to rewrite the Constitution, two steps strongly opposed by mainland China.
He was particularly emphatic in warning of the risk posed by the rapid modernization of the People's Liberation Army on the mainland, especially its heavy investments in missiles that can reach Taiwan. "In the face of such imminent and obvious threat, Taiwan must not rest its faith on chance or harbor any illusions," he said.
Beijing had no immediate reaction. Wang Daohan, China's chief negotiator on Taiwan issues for many years, died Dec. 24 at 90, and political analysts have said that his death may make the mainland less likely to change policies toward the island soon.
Philip Yang, the director of the Taiwan Security Research Center at National Taiwan University, said Mr. Chen's speech seemed to emphasize shoring up support from hard-line supporters of independence. The Constitution bars the president from seeking a third term when his current term expires in 2008, and there have been growing signs of challenges to what used to be the president's nearly absolute control over the Democratic Progressive Party.
"He tried to prove he is still in control," Mr. Yang said.
The president referred as many as 70 times to the island as Taiwan instead of its legal name, the Republic of China, even though Jan. 1 has long been a public holiday in Taiwan to commemorate the founding of the Republic of China on Jan. 1, 1912. The Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek, defeated on the mainland, retreated to Taiwan in 1949.
The island's Constitution still states that the Republic of China has jurisdiction over all of China, including the mainland, but President Chen has shifted away from this in his own comments for years. He also said in his speech on Sunday that his country had an area of just about 14,000 square miles, which is only the area of the island itself.
Mainland China considers Taiwan a breakaway province.
Lai I-chung, the international affairs director at the Taiwan Thinktank, a research group in Taipei that is independent of the Democratic Progressive Party but politically aligned with it, said President Chen's hard line showed that he had concluded that his party's internal divisions contributed more to its defeat in the municipal elections than the Nationalist Party's overtures to Beijing.
One common worry in Taiwan involves growing economic dependence on the mainland and the extent to which the mainland economy now dwarfs Taiwan's. China's economy is expanding more than twice as fast as Taiwan's and is now six times the size of Taiwan's.
On Dec. 20, statisticians in Beijing raised their estimate of the size of the Chinese economy by an amount equal to the entire annual output of Taiwan, after an economic census found that small private businesses in service industries, like restaurants, had previously been undercounted.
Mr. Chen said Sunday that more than two-fifths of all orders placed with Taiwanese companies for manufactured goods were filled by factories elsewhere. The mainland accounts for 90 percent of these shipments from factories outside Taiwan, he said.
"Although we cannot turn a blind eye to China's market, we should not view the China market as the only or the last market," Mr. Chen said. "Globalization is not tantamount to China-ization. While Taiwan would never close itself off to the world, we also shall not lock in our economic lifeline and all our bargaining chips in China."
Sailors Meet Scots Lifesavers For The First Time
By Marion Scott, Glasgow Sunday Mail, 1 Jan 06
SCOTLAND'S hero rescue team have met the seven men they saved from a stricken Russian submarine with just seconds to spare.
It was an exhilarating experience for rescue supervisor Stuart Gold and Royal Navy Commander Ian Riches when they embraced the crew of the Priz at a civic reception in Petropavlovsk, Russia.
Until their intervention, the crew of the Russian military sub had only minutes left to live after their vessel became caught in underwater cables off the coast of Siberia in August last year.
Stuart, 51, of Pumpherston, near Edinburgh said: "It was a moment we will always cherish, seeing those submariners and their families, safe and happy.
"We were very emotional when of one their young sons hugged me and thanked me, in perfect English, for saving his father's life.
"It brought home to us the importance of the whole exercise, seeing seven families whole again."
He said: "The world watched as we carried out the rescue against all odds.
"But we never got to meet the men we saved. They were whisked off to their mother ship and then to hospital.
"We were honoured by Russian President Putin in October when he came to Downing Street and presented us with medals.
"But we really Great Scots Rescuers Stuart Gold, Ian Riches, Charlie Sillet wanted to meet the men we rescued."
Their dream came true when Stuart and Ian, part of the eight- man team, were flown to Russia.
They met all seven Priz survivors, including Valery Lepetyukha captain second rank, and Vyacheslav Milashevsky, captain lieutenant.
The Renfrew-based team, who picked up a Sunday Mail Great Scot award last year, used their£2million Scorpio underwater vessel to cut cables snaring the sub.
The Priz was inspecting an underwater coastal surveillance system off Siberia when it became trapped.
The drama unfolded five years after the Kursk submarine tragedy which claimed 118 lives when the Russians refused international help to lift the sub off the bed of the Barents Sea.
Stuart said: "We had travelled out to attend the Kursk and had to watch that tragedy unfold, so we were determined to do what we could for the crew of the Priz."
President Putin took three days to accept help for the Priz.
Stuart and his team from James Fisher Defence, were flown to the site by naval and RAF officers.
But they were held up by Russian security who would not give them clearance.
And the Scorpio developed serious faults, delaying their mission while repairs were carried out in the middle of the ocean.
"It was like a 1960s James Bond spy film," said Stuart. "All we could think about were the minutes slipping away while the Russian crew had less and less oxygen left." #The dramatic scenes can be seen in BBC1 documentary, Submarine Rescue, at 9pm on Thursday
Glasgow Evening Times, 29 Dec 05
RESCUERS who saved the lives of seven crew members trapped on a stricken Russian submarine have been handed a jobs lifeline.
The eight-man team at James Rumic submarine rescue base in Renfrew have been told they will keep their jobs for two years
Their base is managed and operated by the Royal Navy. The rescue team is on standby to fly anywhere in the world to tackle emergencies involving submarine crews.
The Royal Navy contract had been due to expire but will now be extended for two years at a cost of £8million.
It comes after the team made worldwide headlines when they used a robot submersible to cut fishing cables which has snared a Russian mini-sub in the Pacific Ocean.
The seven submariners had been trapped on the ocean floor for three days and had only six hours of oxygen left.
Russian President Vladimir Putin honoured the rescue team at a special ceremony at Downing Street.
A Yankee Class submarine surfaced near Bermuda during the Cold War
The Royal Gazette, January 1, 2006
BERMUDA had become a front-line state in the Cold War by 1970 when the Pentagon authorized the deployment of submarine-killing thermo-nuclear depth bombs to the island, according to recently declassified US documents. At the time there had been a major build-up in Soviet submarine activity around the island, with up to three Yankee-class nuclear submarines stationed in a "patrol box" east of the island.
Submarine-launched Soviet ballistic missiles fired from the Bermuda area would have taken only about 16 minutes to strike military and civilian targets along the US East Coast. Soviet submarines were not withdrawn from the Bermuda "patrol box" until the late 1980s.
As late as 1987 the Soviet Union engaged in a large-scale submarine exercise near Bermuda involving five vessels which were among the quietest submarines in the Soviet arsenal.
The Soviet submarines were so quiet and difficult to detect that nuclear depth bombs dropped from P3-Orion patrol aircraft flying out of Bermuda were thought to be the only assured way of destroying the vessels in the event of the Cold War turning hot.
According to recently declassified documents, Dr. Henry Kissinger, then National Security Adviser to the Richard Nixon White House and later US Secretary of State, was involved in secret diplomatic talks with the British over the US military's decision to deploy thermo-nuclear weapons in Bermuda.
The British had long insisted they be consulted before US nuclear weapons were ever used from their territory. With the introduction of depth bombs to Bermuda, London wanted existing consultation arrangements to be extended to cover the island.
"That the use of nuclear weapons could precipitate a world conflagration has made leaders of Allied nations, not least those with US nuclear weapons stored on their territory, keenly interested in influencing how US presidents would use them," said Dr. William Burr, senior analyst at the National Security Archive project of Washington's Georgetown University, who has studied the declassified documents. "This is especially but not uniquely true of British Prime Ministers."
"The change of government in the United Kingdom, from Prime Minister Wilson to Prime Minister Edward Heath, in June 1970, led to the usual discussions on nuclear use consultations involving American weapons based on British soil.
"By mid-December, Nixon and Heath had agreed on a renewal of the US/UK consultation agreement – but it was one that incorporated six amendments by the British.
"Although background documents remain classified, what prompted some of the amendments was to bring within the scope of pre-existing understandings a deployment of nuclear depth bombs at the US-leased naval base in Bermuda.
"By the 1970s, with the Lulu nuclear depth bomb long retired, the Anti-Submarine Warfare weapon deployed in Bermuda would have been the B57 whose explosive yield ranging from 5 to 20 kilotons."
One kiloton equals the explosive power of 1,000 tons of TNT. The atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in 1945 is estimated to have had a yield of 15 kilotons. The bomb that destroyed Nagasaki a few days later had a yield of 21 kilotons.
"Details on the timing, circumstances, etc. of the Bermuda deployment are unavailable but it almost certainly related to US Naval reactions to the expansion of the Soviet sea-launched ballistic missile fleet during the 1970s in the waters near Bermuda," said Dr. Burr.
The Yankee class submarines were first built in 1968 and began to be commissioned into the Soviet fleet in 1969 and 1970.
On December 14, 1970 President Nixon agreed to the extension of the US/UK consultative agreement to include Bermuda in a letter to Prime Minister Heath.
"Dear Mr. Prime Minister: Your letter of November 9, 1970 proposes six amendments be made to the memorandum setting forth the agreement between our governments with regard to consultation on the use of nuclear weapons in order to make these understandings applicable also to United States anti-submarine warfare weapons stored at (Bermuda)," reads a sanitised version of the letter. "I am agreeable to the amendments as proposed and shall consider the understanding existing between our governments with regard to consultation on the use of nuclear weapons, as so amended, to remain fully in effect."
Although the word "Bermuda" is blacked out in this document, confirmation that the amendments applied to the local deployment is provided in a May, 1971 letter from Nixon to Heath which further extended the US/UK consultative agreement to cover American ballistic missile submarines based in Holy Loch, Scotland.
"I am pleased to give you my assurance that the United States government will regard the memorandum of understanding last reaffirmed in my letter of December 14, 1970 (concerning consultation between our two governments before certain forces equipped with United States nuclear weapons and operating from bases in the United Kingdom and Bermuda would use these weapons) as applying with respect to fleet ballistic missile submarines (Poseidon-equipped) in the same manner," wrote President Nixon. Dr. Burr said although some details of the Bermuda nuclear depth bomb deployment remain shrouded in official secrecy, "certainly it was significant enough for Henry Kissinger to have maintained several folders on the 'British-US Nuclear Matter (Bermuda Exchange)' in his office files."
The documents underscore that Bermuda was fully integrated into the US Cold War nuclear defense strategy, confirming longstanding speculation about the island's role during the superpower stand-off. Suspicions that US military bases in Bermuda had been earmarked for the deployment of nuclear weapons were first raised in 1985 when American military researcher William Arkin leaked a copy of a 1974 US nuclear weapons deployment plan. The October 7, 1974 Top Secret White House document, National Security Decision Memorandum 274, was titled "Nuclear Weapons Deployment Authorization for FY75". Signed by National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger for President Nixon, it gave presidential approval for stockpile dispersals world-wide.
That plan indicated as many as two-dozen nuclear depth bombs were to be deployed in Bermuda in times of "advanced readiness" – a military euphemism for a major crisis with the Soviet Union.
In keeping with standard policy, the US at the time refused to either "confirm or deny" contents of the leaked document which also covered US nuclear weapon dispersals to American bases in the Philippines, Canada, Portugal and Iwo Jima.
The host countries involved – including Bermuda – had all been unaware of the deployment plans. The fallout from the report, first given widespread exposure by Bermuda's Royal Gazette and later picked up by The New York Times, was world-wide with governments demanding explanations from Washington.
Soviet submarines are thought to have been withdrawn from the Bermuda patrol box by the time the Soviet Empire finally collapsed in 1989/90. The Yankees, almost 450 long and carrying crews of more than 100, were the first class of Soviet subs to have comparable firepower, in terms of ballistic missile batteries, to their US counterparts. Yankee subs were quieter than their predecessors and had smoother lines that made them more efficient in the water. They were armed with 16 ballistic missiles, each carrying multiple, independently-targetable nuclear warheads.
Although there were no confrontations between US forces stationed here and the Soviet submarines operating off the island's shores, the final years of the Cold War were not without drama for Bermuda. In October, 1986 the Yankee class K-219 got into trouble several hundred miles east of Bermuda. Smoke and steam were seen issuing from one of the 16 missile tubes on the vessel by US P-3 Orion patrol aircraft flying out of the Bermuda US Naval Air Station.
The sub was on a regular patrol in the Bermuda area when an explosion occurred in one of the loaded missile tubes. The subsequent damage caused the missile compartment to leak and the submarine was forced to surface. Then fire broke out in the damaged missile tube. While the crew was trying to deal with that problem, an electrical short tripped off the emergency systems and one of the submarine's nuclear reactors shut down. The second reactor had also to be shut down and the vessel was left without power. On October 6 the K-219 sank, four crewmembers died. The cause of the explosion remains unknown. A rescue operation coordinated out of Bermuda saw the surviving crew members rescued and taken to Iceland.