The good captain, p.41
The Good Captain, page 41
Civil-military cooperation had long been recognized as essential to success in COIN, a lesson going back to the massive COORDS program from Vietnam,5 but execution on the ground had often been uneven and difficult. While agency cultures and doctrinal differences are always present, truly integrated civil-military operations seemed clearly the way ahead. Here Scaparrotti also broke new ground by embracing “unified action”—a first-ever attempt to genuinely fuse military and civilian organizations into one operational headquarters. At the transfer of authority from the 101st Airborne Division on June 4, 2009, there were three civilians posted to the headquarters. That began to change quickly. In July 2009, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul converted the political advisor position to that of senior civilian representative (SCR) of the ambassador. Empowered with “chief of Mission” authority to “coordinate and direct all U.S. Mission-related civilian personnel and programs in RC-East,” Ambassador Dawn Liberi was directed to “serve as the U.S. civilian counterpart to the military commander in the Regional Command (RC), to senior coalition civilians and to senior local Afghan officials.”6 In this role, the SCR co-signed, with the commanding general, the CJTF-82 campaign plan (Operation Champion Sahar) on October 17, 2009. Except for purely kinetic combat operations, the ambassador would co-sign every order we published. This approach bridged a deep divide: a military traditionally focused on conflict and combat, and a civilian process focused on diplomacy and development.
This unique organization, a true civilian/military hybrid unlike any seen before, included senior military Civil Affairs officers, as well as career experts from the Departments of State and Agriculture, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), and other government agencies up to senior executive service rank. Drawing on the capabilities of the entire staff and tying in with parallel organizations above and below, it quickly energized development and governance. The civilian uplift began in earnest in early September with the arrival of eight USAID specialists in water, agriculture, governance, rule of law, program management, and economics—specialties with applications for both governance and development. The platform eventually grew to more than 175 personnel from the State and Agriculture Departments and USAID.
An interesting development was the “board of directors” concept, used at brigade level to coordinate and prioritize development projects. The brigade commander chaired regular working groups with his affiliated State, USAID, Agriculture, and PRT leaders to plan, coordinate, and prioritize funding and support for development projects. PRTs continued to play a critical role. Manned with both civilian and military experts, they provided a primary interface and capacity-building function with provincial governors and their staffs, serving as an execution arm for development and governance in the provinces. Most were led by U.S. Air Force or Navy O-5s (lieutenant colonels or commanders) with U.S. government civilian deputies, but RC-East also fielded Czech, Turkish, and New Zealand PRTs. Each included development and governance professionals and security elements to enable freedom of movement. All U.S. PRTs were placed under the operational control of nearby brigades to establish a clear link to nearby supporting headquarters and to ensure close integration with all stability actors across the brigade area.
Like everything in Afghanistan, stability operations were a hard and grinding business, fraught with setbacks and obstacles. Ingrained corruption, lack of trained bureaucrats and officials, widespread illiteracy, an active insurgency, and complex coordination challenges between U.S., NATO, UN, and nongovernmental organization bodies defined our operating environment. Still, unified action enabled us to achieve real progress. In one year, we built 47 schools, 206km of roads, 39 bridges, and numerous micro-hydro, generator, and solar power projects, as well as electrical systems projects that provided some 340,000 Afghans with access to reliable power. During our rotation, RC-East residents reported real improvements in education, medical care, roads, and the availability of jobs. Additionally, an accumulated backlog of more than 1,700 unfinished projects dating back to 2006 was reduced to just over 500 between July 2009 and April 2010, refocusing the program to primarily small-scale, sustainable projects that provided immediate results.
Unified action also enabled clear progress on rule of law, helping with evidence collection, removal of corrupt officials, and the establishment of sitting supreme court judges and mobile trial judges. As one example, five corrupt district governors were removed in Nangarhar province in the spring of 2010, and in early May a judicial commission from the Afghan supreme court charged five district line managers with corruption and opened investigations on another 13 in Paktika province. Across RC-East, 12 crooked Afghan Army and police commanders at the district and provincial levels were removed in one five-month period.
Gains on this front were halting but helped to combat the corrosive corruption that threatened progress in Afghanistan. Unified action had been considered theoretically for years, but it became an operational reality for the first time in RC-East in 2009. As a new construct, it experienced many of the birthing pains that always accompany new ideas and practices. In our view, the return was well worth the investment.
Since 9/11, U.S. and coalition forces had partnered in various ways with host nation security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, both formally and informally. Here also, we committed to a new and different approach called “combined action.” The previous model featured embedded training teams (ETTs) and police mentor teams, small organizations that accompanied Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) units as trainers and advisors. In a sharp break with the past, CJTF-82 moved to fuse Afghan and U.S. formations into truly combined units. “Combined action” meant merging coalition and Afghan forces into single organizations to conduct counterinsurgency. We embedded our staff officers and units in Afghan units, in place of traditional advisors. Replacing small advisory teams with full-sized combat units encouraged the Afghans to fight, knowing that we were there in strength and ready to bring in fire support if needed. Previously, the ratio of coalition to Afghan soldiers or police was 1:43 in many areas. Through combined action, that ratio became 1:4.
In just 90 days, the percentage of Afghan-led operations increased 15 percent, the number of joint Afghan/coalition operations jumped 20 percent, and army and police recruiting showed strong improvement—a clear indication of growing confidence. All this placed heavy demands on logistics and engineer support. Many Afghan bases were derelict, which seriously affected morale. Co-locating headquarters and formations provided an opportunity to construct new facilities and expand others to improve Afghan quality of life and recruiting. In some cases, the Afghan Army moved to our sites. In others, we moved to theirs. In some cases, we built new bases.
The single most dramatic decision was to push out 35-man tactical command posts, each led by a U.S. brigadier general, to live, work, and fight with the Afghan 201st and 203rd Corps.7 U.S. assets such as artillery fires, close air support, medical evacuation, intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) platforms, and logistics could now be incorporated into Afghan operations to a far greater degree. In the same way, we benefited from Afghan cultural awareness, tactical experience, and local intelligence sources as never before. The result was a 70 percent increase in reporting and a striking 60 percent reduction in ANSF casualties after only 90 days.
By now, after years of war, we knew that Afghanistan was home to a dangerous insurgency characterized by highly organized networks made up of commanders, financiers, suppliers, intelligence operatives, propagandists, and foot soldiers. To smash them, General Scap directed a full-spectrum approach. Called “Joint Network Targeting” (JNT), it featured both lethal and nonlethal actions to attack systems, not just personalities, to disrupt and collapse insurgent cells. The previous rotation, with fewer troops, had delegated most targeting functions to the brigades. With more resources flowing into Afghanistan as we drew down in Iraq, the need to focus all of our capabilities—special operations forces and conventional units, ISR, fires, aviation, information—to find and kill the enemy became clear.
With each operation, the CJTF adapted its processes, learning from both success and failure. Our methods relied on painstaking intelligence work to establish “pattern of life” and to limit and prevent collateral damage during the operation. Insurgent networks in Afghanistan were highly adaptive and quickly replaced leaders and captured materials. JNT analyzed the entire network—to include recruitment, training, logistical support, financing, command and control systems, leadership, and negative influencers. We learned that “shredding” networks was possible by attacking not only key nodes in the enemy network, but also key functions, simultaneously. This often took the form of major operations that massed ISR and other resources for extended periods to maintain continuous pressure.
In Afghanistan, we faced an implacable and deadly enemy who had to be confronted when he could not be reconciled. An intercepted insurgent radio transmission put it succinctly: “They will kill us. They will kill us all.”
Much of our planning and preparation had been done before we arrived, but the CAG, as a small part of the larger whole, accomplished much in the first weeks and months. Here my varied experience with the media, public affairs, and reservists stood me in good stead. As I had in many other assignments, I learned quickly to rely on the expertise of our subject matter experts and to confine myself to enterprise management: filling key slots, setting goals and objectives, finding money and building structure and process into our operations.
“Big Army” had allotted us a single Army Reserve Psychological Operations Company, though doctrine called for a battalion. Its commander, a major, was an experienced officer with prior service in Iraq, but his company deployed at only 60 percent strength and was not reinforced for the duration of the mission. Unfortunately, early in the deployment the company operations officer, a female captain, was found to be pregnant and was sent home without replacement. This unit performed miracles for the entire year and we owed them much, but CENTCOM and the Army Staff did us no favors in stinting these soldiers in such a way. They bore an unfairly heavy burden.
Early on, I was forced to replace my active duty Information Operations (IO) chief, an Army officer who lacked a sense of urgency or ability to make decisions and produce results. His deputy, Marine Lieutenant Colonel Steve Manber, was a reserve infantry officer with Iraq experience. A graduate of the 30-day Joint IO course, Manber had plenty of drive and persistence and would move mountains for me as the new IO chief. His first speech to his troops was memorable: “The colonel has put me in charge. You will perform, or I will choke you to death!” Later, he would command a light armored vehicle battalion and rise to full colonel. Fortunately, none of his soldiers were harmed in the process!
The rest of the IO team was colorful, to say the least. One ancient master sergeant, a reservist from Brooklyn, was a teamster in civilian life and clearly linked with the mob. When asked if he’d ever been arrested, he replied proudly, “Sir, I’ve never once been convicted of anything!” Another NCO came from the porn industry—“Production and distribution side, sir, I promise!” He proved invaluable in our effort to generate and disseminate CDs and video products. A reserve lieutenant worked in the medical supply business and was expert in supply chain management, which proved critical to our operation. Another reserve officer was an advertising executive, a priceless skill set. The CAG team, about 50 officers and NCOs, was thickly salted with reservists whose civilian backgrounds were a treasure trove.
Broadcast and print media proved to be powerful tools, but in an oral, narrative culture like Afghanistan’s, nothing can replace traditional, face-to-face communications. Commanders and leaders at all levels routinely conducted “key leader engagements” or KLEs, indispensable opportunities to communicate effectively in real time with Afghan counterparts and local communities. While KLEs had been used for several years in Afghanistan, their deliberate use as a messaging tool in support of a coherent communications strategy—synchronized and in concert with other messaging—was an innovation.
Some of our operations were phased, long-duration efforts, like Operation Jaeza (meaning “reward”), an integrated campaign to establish tiplines. Commanders used their RIABs, face-to-face engagements and hundreds of thousands of print products to inform the population about the tiplines. Virtually every item handed out in villages and towns—school backpacks, flags, humanitarian supplies, even emergency food and water—was accompanied by counter-IED literature and tipline numbers. As awareness grew, increasing numbers of local Afghans began to call in the location of IEDs and caches, often receiving cash payments for making these calls under our rewards program. Many Afghans, though illiterate, possessed and used cell phones, but our units also handed out ISAF cell phones to trusted local leaders and personalities to facilitate call-ins. These calls soon increased by a factor of 10. By tracking the number and results of the incoming calls, the program could quickly present evidence pointing to the power of information in COIN.
My baptism of fire came only two weeks into my tour when, on June 30, Private Bowe Bergdahl left his combat outpost in Paktika province on foot, without his weapon or equipment, except for a compass. A troubled young man, Bergdahl had been rejected by the Coast Guard before enlisting in the Army, and he would later be diagnosed with behavioral disorders. His disappearance was quickly reported up the chain, and General Scap immediately called a DUSTWUN (for “Duty Status/Whereabouts Unknown”) battle drill. We would later learn that Bergdahl was captured by local Taliban elements soon after his departure. For now, the war ground to a halt as we bent every effort to recovering our lost soldier.
One immediate response was to give RC-East priority for assets like the MQ-1 Predator, an unmanned aerial platform mounting different kinds of sensor packages. These were scarce and hotly contested resources, and they made a difference. Although we ultimately did not recover Bergdahl, these additional capabilities helped us to locate and attack enemy units and leaders we might otherwise have missed. CJTF-82 inflicted serious damage on the Taliban that summer as we “flooded the zone” with soldiers determined to find Bergdahl. Later, some would deny that any U.S. soldiers were killed in the search. I don’t remember it that way, and Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers don’t either. They risked their lives to get him back. Some were killed in the attempt. Years later, Bergdahl would return home following a prisoner exchange to be dishonorably discharged, after pleading guilty to desertion and misbehavior before the enemy.
In the course of the search for Bergdahl, an intelligence officer approached me with a request for help. He had reason to believe that a wanted Taliban leader might have knowledge of Bergdahl’s whereabouts. Our J2 intelligence section had narrowed down his possible locations to any one of 10 villages in RC-East. At this stage of the war, we had taught the enemy to be cautious about using radios and cell phones. How to flush him out?
Our PSYOPS company commander came up with a novel approach. Over the next 24 hours, his unit prepared one million leaflets featuring the enemy leader’s name and picture, a heroic effort that literally saw some of his soldiers treated intravenously with IV fluids. On the reverse side of the leaflet, the locals were given a phone number and invited to call in with the target’s whereabouts, encouraged by an offer of a hefty reward. The next morning at dawn, Master Sergeant Keane and I accompanied a tactical PSYOPS team in UH60 helicopters to drop the leaflets. A hundred thousand leaflets descended over each of the 10 villages like a paper blizzard.
Sure enough, our target was in one of them. Panicking, he came up on his hand-held radio to demand rescue. ISAF intelligence staffs intercepted the call and a response team, on strip alert at the airfield, was quickly flown in to grab him. Bergdahl was already in Pakistan, but the target turned out to be an intelligence gold mine. Like most “meat-eating” infantrymen, I had spent much of my career pooh-poohing “leaf-eating” psychological operations officers. Now, I gained newfound respect for their expertise and critical contributions.
Understandably, the media focus surrounding Bergdahl was intense, and we worked night and day to ensure that our many target audiences—U.S., local, international and NATO—received accurate and timely information, subject to operational security constraints. Here we worked closely with ISAF counterparts in Kabul to manage the media storm. Mostly, we were doing damage control. There is no way to “spin” a missing or captured soldier and barring his recovery—which seemed more and more unlikely as time went on—the best we could hope for was that the news cycle would eventually move on.
It did, on July 4, when a platoon-sized outpost in the Zarok district of Paktika province was attacked by a large number of insurgents belonging to the Haqqani network. Accurate enemy fires destroyed the defenders’ mortar pit and crippled radio communications with a strike on the command post. A massive 800kg vehicle-borne IED, driven by a suicide bomber, attempted to breach the main gate but was defeated when small arms fire killed the driver. In the ensuing battle, two American soldiers were killed and 20 wounded, almost 50 percent of the defending force becoming casualties. Despite their losses, the U.S. unit repelled the heavy assault, holding their ground and killing more than 30 insurgents.
An attack of this magnitude was a big story and, understandably, news coverage was immediate and widespread. Across the board, major news organizations reported the event accurately based on information provided by our public affairs section, but blaring headlines trumpeted the high number of U.S. casualties. As soon as the story broke, I was called by an infuriated brigade commander. In his view we had “failed to shape the story.” The real story was not friendly casualties but his unit’s successful defense and high body count. What good was “this CAG thing” if we couldn’t generate favorable press? I explained patiently that the best we could hope for was accurate reporting; the journalists in-country were not responsible for headlines contrived back in New York or Washington by editors hungry for market share.
