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October 17, 2009
Obama Ignored Warnings Before Deadly Afghan Attack
The Department of Defense released these photos as they announced on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2009 the death of eight soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Oct. 3 in Kamdesh, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked their contingency outpost with small arms, rocket-propelled grenade and indirect fires. They were assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Fort Carson, Colo. On the top row are, from left to right, Sgt. Justin T. Gallegos, 27, Tucson, Ariz., Spc. Christopher T. Griffin, 24, Kincheloe, Mich., Pfc. Kevin C. Thomson, 22, Reno, Nev., Michael P. Scusa, 22, Villas, N.J. From left on bottom row, Sgt. Vernon W. Martin, 25, Savannah, Ga., Stephan L. Mace, 21, Lovettsville, Va., Sgt. Joshua J. Kirk, 30, South Portland, Maine, Sgt. Joshua M. Hardt, 24. Applegate, Calif. (AP Photos/Dept. of Defense)
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U.S. ignored warnings before deadly Afghan attack
Three intelligence reports dismissed days before eight U.S. soldiers killed
Three intelligence reports warned that Taliban insurgents were planning an attack just days before this month's raid on two remote military outposts in eastern Afghanistan that killed eight U.S. soldiers, but the reports were dismissed as insignificant, U.S. officials told The Washington Times.
As a result, military officials did not send additional troops or make preparations to protect the 140 U.S. and Afghan troops at the combat outposts near Kamdesh in Nuristan province by the Pakistan border, the officials said.
Army Maj. T.G. Taylor, a spokesman for the Army's Task Force Mountain Warrior, told The Times that the three reports did not stand out among hundreds of others and that the intelligence was deemed to be not specific and uncorroborated.
"Reports like this happen all the time in all of our areas," Maj. Taylor said in an e-mail. "It is only through corroboration of reports and/or multiple instances of reporting that we can develop patterns."
One U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information, said that despite the Army's characterization of the reports as insignificant, some of the reporting was included in finished intelligence that circulated in classified channels throughout the region before the attack. Finished intelligence is material that has been analyzed and determined to be of value.
A former senior Army officer said the intelligence should have prompted action to provide the outposts with more defenses.
"Why didn't they react and have immediate support on site, based on the intelligence, and even based on the initial attack that occurred?" retired Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely asked.
Gen. Vallely said the outposts near the border should have been staffed with more Afghan troops, who despite eight years of U.S. assistance and training are not deemed capable of running such posts themselves.
The attacks on the Keating and Fritsche outposts - the deadliest in more than a year - are now being reviewed by the Pentagon. The disclosure of prior intelligence warnings comes as President Obama is weighing a request by his top commander in the region to deploy up to 40,000 additional troops to Afghanistan.
Some 200 Taliban insurgents attacked the outposts on the morning of Oct. 3 with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades, nearly overrunning the fortified bases.
They killed eight U.S. Army soldiers and two Afghan soldiers, making it the deadliest single attack against allied forces in Afghanistan since a similar raid in nearby Wanat in July 2008. Nine U.S. soldiers were killed in that battle, which prompted a re-evaluation of U.S. counterinsurgency tactics in Afghanistan.
One of the intelligence reports on Kamdesh, released in part to The Times, stated that a new Taliban sub-commander in Kamdesh, named Ghulan Faroq, had been appointed and "charged with attacking COP Keating," but no date for the attack was given. COP is military shorthand for combat outpost.
The report also stated that on or about Sept. 29 or 30, "fighters in Kamdesh received a resupply of B-10 ammunition" suitable for use with Soviet-design B-10 recoilless guns that fire 82 mm mortarlike rounds.
A second report stated that, around Oct. 2, a Taliban meeting took place in Kamdesh and that "a Taliban commander will arrive in Kamdesh soon to conduct attacks against coalition forces."
The third report stated that around late September, "a Taliban commander planned to conduct simultaneous attacks against coalition bases in Gewardesh, Kamu and Kamdesh regions of Nuristan and that each attack would be perpetrated by 10-15 Taliban fighters in each location."
"At the same time as these attacks, another unit would attack Barg-e Matal with up to 150 fighters."
Despite the information in the intelligence reports, Maj. Taylor insisted that the attack took the 50 U.S. troops and 90 Afghan police officers and soldiers at the combat outposts by surprise.
"There was no early warning of attacks or significant reporting in the area, which would lead us to believe there would be attacks," he said.
Asked to define significant reporting, Maj. Taylor said that "no significant reporting means that there was no reporting that would lead anyone to believe that anything was out of the ordinary."
Nuristan province is considered a hotbed of al Qaeda and Taliban forces. It is located close to the border where insurgents regularly cross into refuges in Pakistan.
The Army operates several intelligence units in the eastern region of Afghanistan that are in charge of collecting, analyzing and disseminating reports. A military official said communications between headquarters and the outposts was not a problem.
Maj. Taylor said the attack on the outposts, which left at least 27 injured, is under investigation by the military under Article 15-6 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. Such inquiries occur "any time there is a loss of life," he said.
Before the attack, the 200 Taliban and other Islamist insurgents infiltrated a mosque in Kamdesh and dug into positions on adjacent hillsides within firing range of the bases.
The U.S. and Afghan soldiers fought back with 155 mm artillery despite heavy enemy fire that limited their capacity to return fire. The soldiers received no combat air support until Apache attack helicopters reached the outposts 30 minutes after the attack began.
After the July 2008 battle at nearby Wanat, the military conducted an investigation to determine whether commanders had been negligent. Military analysts say that battle led to a decision to begin moving forces out of remote hard-to-defend areas.
Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, has proposed a counterinsurgency strategy that would move U.S. troops closer to larger population centers with a goal of better protecting the Afghan public against the insurgents. The risk is that the Taliban will be able to move more freely and control more of the countryside.
Both Kamdesh and Wanat are symptomatic of what critics have called the "under-resourced war" in Afghanistan - one that is being fought with too few troops and without other needed equipment.
A draft U.S. military report circulating in military circles stated that troops at the Wanat outpost were distracted by preparations for replacements and did not have enough surveillance drones in use to detect preparations for the attack.
The combat posts at Kamdesh were abandoned days after the battle and then bombed by U.S. aircraft. Western news agencies reported that a Taliban spokesman had boasted that the group's flag was flying over the abandoned outposts.
Wild Thing's comment.......
It sickens me that this happened and didn't have to. Are you listening you POS Obama????????????????
....Thank you Mark for sending this to me.
Mark
3rd Mar.Div. 1st Battalion 9th Marine Regiment
1/9 Marines aka The Walking Dead
VN 66-67
Posted by Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 03:55 AM
Comments
I volunteered to proudly serve for 20-years under the the following Commander In Chiefs: Presidents jimmy carter...
RONALD WILSON REAGAN... GEORGE H.W. BUSH #41 ...
and bill clinton! My God I feel for today's U.S. military personnel, I really do!
God bless!!
Go get 'em Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh!!!
Posted by: darthcrUSAderworldtour07 at October 17, 2009 11:06 AM
I can only surmise based on what happened in my case in Vietnam. We would often get intelligence reports that we were going to get hit on such and such a night or sometime during such and such a week. 90+% of these reports proved false. We would be on alert doubling our guards. One of our Birddogs would be airborne to provide flares and adjust artillery. We had gunships and hour away and fighters were usually an half an hour away.
The problem with air support was there were so many locations to defend and intel accuracy was spotty. Maybe today it is better. I don't know. But air support seemed to get there fairly quickly.
The big problem with COP Keating was that it was built in a bowl surronded by mountains. Some of those mountains came right up to the edge of the camp. Very indefensible.
Posted by: TomR at October 17, 2009 11:56 AM
Yeah, these things happen even with the best reports. But the problem is that it is happening more and more, and, there is no reaction from the Whitehouse. So even if you can't blame the President for not responding to these specific reports, it all contributes to the feeling that these soldiers are left to their own devices and the White House is not doing enough to protect them. I believe that this is a very dangerous road that Obama is taking, not only for the lives of the soldiers, but also for the relationship between the military and the civil authorities. Not good. Not good at all.
Posted by: Eddy at October 17, 2009 12:01 PM
It seems, with no jungle canopy, large enemy movements would be a whole lot easier to detect and counter. But, I honestly don't know. I do know that the Taliban is not being made to pay a heavy price for their successes. A blow to morale, I'm sure. God protect our troops, because Obama won't.
Posted by: Jim at October 17, 2009 12:50 PM
How can the enemy not know our every movement? Intel is shared with the Congress that has the moral turpitude of a whore on heroin, the traitorous bastards leak it to the treasonous media and the media blows the top secret plans to the entire world. In '68 we were guests of the U.S, Mortuary team in Da Nang until our junk arrived, we didn't have a clue where we were headed as our orders were sealed, but those gunships knew, they'd fly over our camp and use their loud speakers to announce "you'll never get to Quang Tri that way". Once along the DMZ, our efforts were fully known by the north, even our unit ID, nightly bullhorns would blare 'build it good GI", we're going to blow it up, and they did. B52 missions out of Anderson AFB, Guam were often compromised by media leaks, they depended on ground directed bombing under a program known as as COMBAT SKYSPOT, which had strategic cordination sites inside and outside Vietnam, LRRPS were a vital source of their ground information, just being in the information loop meant potential leaks to the enemy, not even considering duplicity from our allies, (sorry, I hated Marvin, think of little Arlen Specter's that flip flop daily). Strategically that location of COP Keating is reminiscent of Dien Bien Phu, right in the middle of enemy territory with all the logistical and defensive problems that go with being in the bottom of the bowl. Khe Sanh was a similar situation, surrounded by mountains, one road in and out with only difficult air support if that road was cut. I mentioned Mang Yang yesterday, the route to Khe Sanh wasn't much better, no rock wall choke points but choke points nonetheless as the route followed the stream bed of the Cam Lo River most of the way. From what I've seen of Afghanistan they don't have roads, they use animal or tribal trails, wadi's or cross country travel, in Vietnam we had roads, some were horrible, but they passed for roads. At any natural slowing point you are vulnerable, take out the lead and trail vehicle and it's Katy bar the door. As Tom mentions, there were always rumors, just wait a day, they sometimes come true, sometimes didn't, but you have to treat them all seriously. Air support promised and delivered were two different things, priorities, time and weather always were factors that entered into the fray, nothing sweeter than Spookey when Charlie was a bit too close for comfort, even then sometimes the best he could offer were flares as it was a proximity issue. The bottom line is these men died as a direct result of Pelosi and Reid's Congress and Obama's malfeasance.
Posted by: Jack at October 17, 2009 02:50 PM
As long as we worry about killing civilians we won't win any more wars. Read up on the fire bombing of Dresden and other German cities, of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and you'll see what ended WWII. Strike the Pakistani cities and maybe they'll recall Al Qaeda. Hell, war is about killing people and I don't think we have the stomach for it any more.
Posted by: horace at October 17, 2009 05:17 PM
Horace you've got it right, the gloves must come off. This is not a game, and to play at this with silly game rules makes me sick. Jump in with both feet or get out our boys deserve this and deserve this now and not tomorrow, for tomorrow will never come for those 8 shown above.
Posted by: Ron Russell at October 17, 2009 07:31 PM
Darth, with all those different President's
you have really seen the difference. Thank
you Darth for your service.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:31 PM
Tom, thank you so much for sharing about
your experience with this kind of thing
in Vietnam.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:33 PM
Eddy, yes it is happening more and more
and Obama is not reacting to it at all.
Disgusting.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:38 PM
Jim, the location was like a bowl,
surrounded by mountains. The mountains
were packed with the Taliban and they
could shoot down on our guys and come
right down on top of them.
Because of the R.O.E.'s our planes were
not allowed to bomb the heck out of the
mountains because they might kill a
civilian. It is a bunch of baloney
because the civilians among the taliban
support the Taliban.
I agree Jim, God protect our troops.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:41 PM
Jack, well said, thanks for all you
said.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:44 PM
Horace, exactly, those in leadership
want a PC war and that means they might
as well surrender. That is NO war,
it is only going to get our troops
killed.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:47 PM
Ron DITTO all of that.
Posted by: Wild Thing at October 17, 2009 07:48 PM
They are running out of Bush excuses. It is his war now. Sadly, American soldiers are paying the price for obamas stupidity and his love for his brother muzzies. What goes around comes around.
Posted by: Mark at October 17, 2009 09:13 PM
I agree with Horace, as a mother of a Soldier currently serving in Afghanistan I totally agree with you. I don't want to see innocent people hurt, but the truth is they don't care who they hurt on our soil. They don't hold their people to the same rules as our people do so why do we need to. They show their people doing all kinds of things to our soldiers yet let one of our guys spit the wrong way and they are in trouble. It is ridiculous...
Posted by: Tina at October 18, 2009 07:57 AM
