INFOWARCON (2): Deception

Continuing to discuss INFOWARCON….

Yesterday I heard some brief remarks by Brigadier General Thomas Draude on the subject of deception.  General Draude had been in charge of the Marines’ deception operations during DESERT STORM.  You will recall that the Marines and the Navy had made a big show out of preparing an amphibious landing in Kuwait that never came, apparently pinning down several Iraqi divisions in defending the beaches.  As an aside, Kevin Woods’ work on DESERT STORM from the Iraqi side doesn’t have a clear optic on this, but it does suggest that the Director of Iraq’s General Military Intelligence Division suspected a deception but that Saddam appears probably to have bought the story that General Draude was trying to sell.

Deception, General Draude said, must be believable.  This may sound like a banal observation, but he said that once words gets around that a commander is planning a deception that the strangest, weirdest people in the entire command will “come out of the woodwork” with all sorts of bizarre and unbelievable ideas.  The wise commander will ignore these people.  After all, he said, the point of a deception is to “confuse” the enemy not to “amuse” him.

Ideally, a deception will give the enemy a logical, sound course of action (COA) that just happens to be false.  General Draude suggested using a COA that the command really had considered executing but had ultimately rejected.  Then the trick is to let the enemy see what we want him to see and deny him vital indicators that might point unambiguously to the truth.

Deception should be built into a plan from the very beginning, the General advises.  And the key intelligence considerations are:

• Who makes the key decisions on the enemy’s side?  How does he think?
• What do we want him to do? (The issue is not what do we want him merely to think.)
• Finally, is the target buying the deception?  If not, we may have to actually execute the deception plan as a real operation!

Finally, General Draude noted that his favorite book on deception was Ewen Montagu’s The Man Who Never Was, the classic about “Major Martin of the Royal Marines” who washed ashore in Spain in 1943 carrying documents hinting that the Allies would invade Sardinia instead of Sicily which was the real plan.  On a purely personal note, I have a special place in my heart for that book.  It is the first book on deception that I read and one of the very first that I read in military history.  I got it in probably fourth or fifth grade (Ms. Linden or Mrs. Strehle).  It came from the Scholastic Book Service and I imagine that I paid about 35 cents for it.  It was worth every penny.  Here it is:

My grade school copy of The Man Who Never Was

I will now take it carefully back to my bookshelf.

Saddam’s Scorecard from Desert Storm

The latest issue of The Journal of Strategic Studies is out with an article that Kevin Woods and I wrote, entitled “Saddam’s Perceptions and Misperceptions: The Case of Desert Storm.”  “Victory” is not an objective concept.  Both sides to a conflict can claim it and it is a pretty well-known fact that Saddam thought that he won Desert Storm.  However, captured documents were able to give us a great deal of insight into the details of that perception.  We go on to argue that the lessons Saddam learned in 1991 served him very badly in 2002-2003.

Saddam did not deny that his forces had suffered some defeats during Desert Storm.  However, he took a holistic view of victory and his conclusion here was much more positive.  He argued that America’s failure to remove him from power was a clear victory for Iraq: “After [America’s] experiences with us, which did not achieve its ends regardless of [our] withdrawal from Kuwait, they might wonder how much force they need to deploy this time to achieve what they failed to do the last time,” he told his commanders in 1992.   Given the complete identity in Saddam’s mind between himself and the state, if he were still in power then he had clearly not lost.  From this, it was a short step to ‘victory’, particularly for a man who saw one aspect of this war as personal: Saddam versus President George H. W. Bush.  It appears that he made this step, noting before a group of Ba’ath party members in January 1993, “all the world is now saying, ‘man, why are we afraid of so much?’  Bush fell and Iraq lasted!”

There is also reason to believe that Saddam may have viewed the missile strikes against Israel as a major success, just as his missile force commander claimed in his 1998 book Forty-Three Missiles on the Zionist Enemy.  In the mid-1990s, Saddam maintained privately that Israel had intended to expand into Arab lands, but that the missile strikes made them realize “that they cannot play their games with us.”  In other words, he believed the strikes had deterred “Israeli aggression,” whatever the precise damage they might have inflicted.  Indeed, while most of us thought the damage that Iraq inflicted on Israel was negligible, the Iraqi General Military Intelligence Directorate reported otherwise.  In 2001, they claimed that Iraqi missiles hit:

• The Israeli Ministry of Defense
• The main communications station in Tel Aviv
• A power station
• A gasoline refinery and a technology institute, both in Haifa
• The Haifa naval base
• Haifa and Tel Aviv ports
• Ben Gurion Airport
• The Dimona nuclear reactor

Saddam also found a way to turn the dismal Iraqi performance in the air war into a victory.  Or, perhaps it would be more correct to say that the Iraqi Air Force found a way to massage the data to tell him that.  The Iraqi Air Force concluded:

• Of all combat and specialized planes, 75 per cent were “rescued,” though this did not include aircraft destroyed by Coalition ground forces or in the post-war civil uprisings. The study noted that by contrast, the Egyptians had lost 70 per cent of their air forces in the 1967 Arab–Israeli War to Israeli air forces that were much weaker than those available to the Coalition in 1991.
• The Air Force also “rescued” 92 per cent of all air weapons, including 98 per cent of the “expensive guided weapons.”
•  The Air Force saved 76 per cent of the ‘very expensive electronic war equipment’.
• “The losses in [air force] personnel amounted to .096 percent and it is a small percentage.”

There is much more along these general lines, but suffice to say that Saddam simultaneously believed that he had met his objectives and the United States had not and that, furthermore, the US military had shown itself to be, if not a paper tiger, certainly less fearsome than it appeared.

Kevin and I then argued that these perceptions of the 1991 allowed Saddam to be much more sanguine about the threat he faced in 2002 and 2003.  The documentary record, at least with regard to Saddam’s personal views, is rather more sparse toward the end of his rule.  However, interestingly, he was quite clear and honest in his public pronouncements; they line up nicely with what appear to have been his private beliefs.

In 2002-2003 Saddam also labored under a security calculus that ordered his threats as follows: (1) internal threats (a coup d’etat, the Shia); (2) regional threats (particularly Iran and Israel); and (3) a US/UK conventional military force.  He had been well served to date by organizing his security apparatus to contend with that hierarchy of threats, but he failed to realize in 2002-2003 that things had changed.  He was the victim of his own lessons-learned.

I know that further work is going on with the captured Saddam records.  There are two additional books beyond this and a couple of articles in the works.  (I was involved with one of the books but none of the other projects.)  Hopefully they will see the light of day, as I think they have the potential to make important contributions to the fields of military and diplomatic history and, furthermore, provide useful fodder to political scientists who deal with international relations.  There is much to be learned about and from Saddam’s Iraq.

Captured Documents, Historians, Anthropologists, etc. (Part III)

My rejoinder to Hugh Gusterson’s comment on my 15 January piece “Captured Documents: Military Historians and Terrorism Scholars vs. Anthropologists?”

I would like to thank Prof. Gusterson for his thoughtful response to my posting.  I rather imagine that he and I will not convince each other.  However, I think this is a debate worth having so as to allow other people who are or may become involved in the issue to make an informed decision consistent with the ethics of their own chosen professions and with their personal moral sense.

I appreciate Prof. Gusterson’s clarification that there are, indeed, multiple different collections of Iraqi documents and that those documents presently at Hoover are different from those documents taken by the U.S. military.  As I do not know the facts behind the collection at Hoover, I cannot bring myself to say that the same legal and ethical conclusions apply to those as apply to the others.

More substantively, however, it seems to me that Prof. Gusterson disagrees with me on two basic grounds.  One relates to whether it was legitimate for the US Government to seize the Iraqi records in the first place.  The other relates to whether it is legitimate to retain these records.  Allow me to address these two issues in reverse order.

RETENTION.

First, as I read the Trudy Peterson article that he and I have both referred to, international law speaks to the legitimacy of seizure not of retention.  In fact, Peterson personally suggests that ‘in the years after the hostilities cease, the seized records should move into archival custody and, ultimately, be repatriated.’  Note the use of the words ‘years’ and ‘ultimately.’

Secondly, while I cannot speak for the U.S. Government and I don’t know what I don’t know, I have always been under the impression that the U.S. Government has never denied that these documents (media files, etc.) are Iraqi property and thus would be returned someday.  (As an aside, it is my understanding that the records from Nazi Germany were not completely returned to Germany until the 1960s and I have heard from an historian who worked in them that the Imperial Japanese records were not completely returned until the 1970s.) 

Thirdly, and most importantly, the documents referred to under Minerva and which will make their way into the Conflict Records Research Center are digital copies (mostly pdf, wav, and wmv files), not the hard copies themselves.  Whatever conclusion one comes to with regard to proper disposition of the originals, there is no a priori reason to assume that this conclusion should apply to copies or to the information contained in the originals. 

In the context of the current exchange, this confusion is my fault.  I referred to “records” and “documents” when I should have referred to “copies of records and documents.”  I apologize to anyone who was confused or misled.

Note that retention of copies of captured records has long precedent behind it.  The National Archives and Records Administration’s Record Group 242 is “Collection of Foreign Records Seized.”  This RG consists mostly of microfilm copies of originals.  It contains materials dating back to 1675.  These are copies of records not only from the obvious countries (Germany, Japan, North Korea, etc.) but also from countries with whom the United States has never been at war (e.g. Norway, the Netherlands, and Portugal).

Furthermore, it is my understanding that once copies (electronic or otherwise) are made of Iraqi records—and such copying is absolutely necessary for analysis for even the most obviously war or administrative-related analysis, let alone for work by historians—those copies become official U.S. Government records.  As such, the U.S. Government is legally obliged to retain them.

SEIZURE

With regard to the issue of seizure, Prof. Gusterson wonders if I have read the Trudy Peterson essay to which I provided a link.  Allow me to assure all concerned that unless the last ~18 months are one big hallucination I have read it several times.

Prof. Gusterson goes on to note that the piece says that ‘combatants may seize records for use by occupation government.”  He argues that there is no legitimate reason for the US to have these records now that the occupation is over.

There are two problems with this. 

First, as noted above, the Peterson piece (and apparently international law) speaks to seizure, not retention

Second, the Peterson piece actually gives six legitimate reasons for the seizure of records, not just the one that Prof. Gusterson mentions.  Collectively, they provide tremendous leeway for seizure.  In Ms. Peterson’s words:

“To sum up, then:

• If the occupying power needs state records for military operations, it can seize them.
• If the occupying power needs state records for the administration of occupied territory, it can seize them.
• If the records are those of municipalities, religious, charitable, educational, and institutions of arts and sciences, they should be immune from seizure unless the persons employed by the institution are ‘definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State.’ Records of municipalities, however, are probably liable for seizure for the purpose of administering the municipality.
• If you are a private person or a private business or organization definitely suspected of or engaged in activities hostile to the security of the State, your records and personal papers can be seized.
• If you are a private person or business or organization that is not engaged in hostile activities, your records and papers are immune from seizure.
• If you are a prisoner of war, your ‘military documents’ can be taken from you, but all other personal documents are yours.”

A FINAL ISSUE

There is one more issue that concerns me.  To be fair, this is not a point that Prof. Gusterson raised, rather it is one that I fear some people might read into his remarks.  He pointed to a piece agreeing with his interpretation which was written by Dr. Saad Eskander, the Director of the Iraq National Library and Archive.  Certainly Mr. Eskander is an expert in the field and his piece is well worth reading.  That said, I fear that Dr. Eskander’s title may lead some to believe that the records under discussion came from “libraries” or “archives.”  As far as I know, that is not the case.  As far as I know, they came from working files.

Is this a relevant distinction?  The Peterson essay speaks to this question, as well:

“But what about archives per se? The Hague IV Convention of 1907 does not use the word ‘archives.’ It is, perhaps, fair to read “archives” into Annex Article 56’s “property of municipalities, that of institutions dedicated to religion, charity and education, the arts and sciences, even when State property” but it is not explicit. Furthermore, archives are both cultural and administrative property and fit somewhat awkwardly in a purely cultural definition. The 1954 Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the event of Armed Conflict solved this ambiguity by including in the definition of cultural property to be protected ‘manuscripts . . and important collections of books or archives” and buildings such as “depositories of archives.’ However, its Article 3, item 2, notes that the obligation to protect such property ‘may be waived only in cases where military necessity imperatively requires such a waiver.’

“Can we stretch the definition in the 1954 convention to cover current records and personal papers? Probably not. While we could argue that letters in the possession of a soldier are “manuscripts” and the records of the secret police are “archives,” the intent of the 1954 Convention is clearly to protect noncurrent historical materials, particularly those housed in a facility designated as an historical archives.”

Captured Documents, Historians, Anthropologists, etc. (Part II)

I received a reply from Prof. Hugh Gusterson to my recent posting on the dispute over whether documents captured in Iraq could legitimately be fodder for historians and others under the Defense Department’s Minerva program.

I would not want his response to be buried in the comments section, nor would I want my forthcoming rejoinder to be so buried, so they shall be the subject of this posting and the next.  I would also be delighted to hear from others on either side of this debate.

Herewith Prof. Gusterson’s response:

BEGIN QUOTATION

My thanks to Mr. Stout for drawing attention to my article on the Minerva Initiative. Although my comments about the Iraqi documents captured by U.S. military forces constitute a very small part of the article, I welcome this opportunity to clarify my argument. Mr. Stout is quite right that the Ba’ath Party documents funneled by Kanan Makiya’s Iraq Memory Foundation to the Hoover Institute are distinct from the much larger collection of maybe 100 million Iraqi documents taken by the U.S. military early in its occupation of Iraq. My article (although it already exceeded the journal’s space limitations) would doubtless have benefited from a more elaborate description of the different kinds of documents seized and the different destinations they have found.

However, I must respectfully disagree with Mr. Stout that the DoD’s custody of these documents is permissible under international law and that researchers funded by Project Minerva to work in those archives will therefore have clean hands. Mr. Stout says “just about every country that has ever fought a war holds or has held captured records from its opponents. In fact, there is specific provision for this in international law.” One wonders if he read the article to which his blog refers readers since that very document makes transparently clear why it is illegal for the U.S. to retain the Iraqi documents DoD seized – documents that constitute the administrative memory of the Iraqi state. The article Mr. Stout cites says “combatants may seize records for use by occupation government. When a territory is occupied, the occupying power needs the records of the former government to enable the new government to function… It is reasonable to assume that such records as needed for governance are to be seized for use, not removal.”

Leaving aside the question of whether the U.S. occupation of Iraq was itself legal under international law, there are thus two reasons why the DoD’s removal of this massive archival treasure trove from Iraq contravene international law: (1) Instead of keeping the captured documents in Iraq for use in assuring administrative continuity (as permitted by international law), the U.S. removed them from the country as a kind of war booty for analysts in the U.S.. (2) Although the U.S. occupation has, in a formal legal sense at least, ended, taking with it any legal case for the U.S. to retain custody of these documents, the U.S. is not only keeping the documents but making plans (through Project Minerva) to institutionalize their use in the U.S.. Saad Eskander, the Director of the Iraqi National Archives, has written an article making clear that he sees no legal distinction between the Iraqi documents at the Hoover Institute and those seized by the DoD. His article specifically condemns Project Minerva for inciting scholars to work with the documents Mr. Stout has been working with. His article can be found at http://essays.ssrc.org/minerva/2008/10/29/eskander/.

Hugh Gusterson

END QUOTATION

Captured Documents: Military Historians and Terrorism Scholars vs. Anthropologists?

Professor Hugh Gusterson of George Mason University has an article entitled “Project Minerva and the Militarization of Anthropology” in the latest issue of Radical Teacher.  This is Prof. Gusterson’s latest objection to Defense Department funding of social science research.  The article has some good points and some rather weak ones, such as the implicit admission late in the article that the title is untrue despite the Government’s (alleged) intentions.  However, I want to focus on one factual error that Gusterson perpetuates relating to captured documents.

Gusterson rightly notes that among the research topics under the Minerva initiative is an “Iraqi Perspectives Project” involving study of captured Iraqi documents.  He goes on to say that these are 5 million Iraqi records looted by the U.S. military and provided to Kanan Makiya’s Iraq Memory Foundation which then stashed them at the Hoover Institution.  The Iraq Memory Foundation does have a substantial collection of documents (primarily from the Iraqi Ba’ath Party) and they are at Hoover.  He says that, because these are illegal booty, they should be returned forthwith to Iraq. 

However, Gusterson is quite wrong when he says that these are the documents referred to under the rubric of the “Iraqi Perspectives Project” (IPP).  In fact, the documents used in the IPP are a completely different set of documents (and other media) numbering in the millions captured by U.S. forces in the course of Operation Iraqi Freedom.  They come primarily from Saddam’s immediate apparatus, the Iraqi military, and the Iraqi security services. 

How do I know?  I worked with these records off and on from 2003 to 2009 and I’ve never seen any of these Ba’ath records that Prof. Gusterson is so concerned about.  Nor, to my knowledge have any of my former colleagues.  Using the other collection of Iraqi records, the one Gusterson seems unaware of, I co-authored (a very small part of) The Iraqi Perspectives Report and also co-authored (in a more serious way) a forthcoming peer-reviewed article assessing Saddam’s perceptions during Desert Storm.  My former colleagues have written several other works (such as this, this, and this) using these records.  More such works are in preparation. 

Whatever the facts are related to the records held at Hoover they are quite different from the facts related to these records that we have used.  Given this, there is no reason to think that the moral or legal issues associated with the two collections should be the same.

It is worth noting that just about every country that has ever fought a war holds or has held captured records from its opponents.  In fact, there is specific provision for this in international law.  Furthermore, such records are among the most valuable sources for many military and diplomatic historians.  Since the Civil War the United States has typically made such captured records available to scholars after the war in question was over.  It is doing the same again, through something called the Conflict Records Research Center.  (See also here.)  Ironically, the one case in which there was serious foot-dragging in opening up captured records was the Philippines War, a highly controversial war even at the time given its imperialist overtones and the fact of torture by American forces.  The U.S. Government should be ashamed of the fact that it suppressed those records for literally about a half-century.  I am proud that the Government is trying not to make the same mistake again.

It is also worth noting that the U.S. Government similarly holds substantial records seized from Al Qaida and its various affiliates and that these, too, will help populate the Conflict Records Research Center.  I used these records in writing with Jessica Huckabey and John Schindler The Terrorist Perspectives Project  as well as this and yet another forthcoming article in a peer-reviewed journal.  In fact, working with these materials was my primary endeavor from 2005-2009.  The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point has also used these records, which they refer to as the Harmony documents, and have used them to make major contributions to our understanding of the terrorists we face.

I don’t in any way begrudge Prof. Gusterson the right to defend his profession.  It would be helpful, however, if he would get his facts straight and if he would at least recognize that other scholarly professions, acting entirely ethically and honorably, might see things differently and might not want to be denied the raw materials necessary for their work.