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| October 3, 2002 |
Northern Command Formally Established in Colorado
Colin Robinson, Research Analyst, crobinson@cdi.org
The U.S. Northern Command, the military’s new unified command charged with defending the continental United States from attack, was established on Tuesday, Oct.1, at the command’s new headquarters at Colorado Springs, Colo. The command’s area of responsibility will include the land, air, and sea defense of the continental United States up to 500 miles, and will also include Alaska, Canada, Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Northern Command, or NORTHCOM, is somewhat different to the rest of the regional unified commands control military operations around the world -- the European and Southern Commands, for example. Beyond the central mission of deterring and defending against threats to the United States within its assigned area of responsibility, shared by all the five regional unified commands, the Northern Command will have the additional task of providing "military assistance to civil authorities including consequence management operations," when directed by either the President or the Secretary of Defense. This reflects the supporting role that the military will play in the overall homeland security effort, only in support of civilian response efforts when ordered to do so.
The structure of the command is now clear. In the spirit of the headquarters (HQ) staff cuts ordered by the 1998 Defense Authorization Act, the only new unit that the new command will bring will be the Northern Command HQ itself, and even that will be balanced by the amalgamation of two other unified commands. As Northern Command is established in Colorado Springs, the Space Command, which was formerly based there, will merge with the Strategic Command based at Offutt Air Force Base near Omaha, Neb. The only forces reporting to the new command will be those of NORAD, the combined US-Canadian North American Aerospace Defense Command, due to Gen. Eberhart’s concurrently being its commander-in-chief, and three relatively small homeland defense units, one activated since the attacks of Sept.11 last year.
The Joint Force Headquarters-Homeland Security, currently headquartered in Norfolk, Va., coordinates the land and maritime defense of the continental United States, and military assistance to civil authorities. The new unit was established in January. It directs the Joint Task Force Civil Support, based at Fort Monroe, Va., which supports civil authorities in the event of a weapons of mass destruction attack on the United States, as well as Joint Task Force 6, which is the Defense Department’s southern land border counter-drug force, based at Fort Bliss, Tex. The headquarters of the four services’ Atlantic-oriented regional commands will also be available to NorthCom for planning purposes. The Coast Guard, in the execution of their homeland security duties, will coordinate with the Northern Command when necessary.
The new command’s relationship with the National Guard, which will probably be the first military forces on the scene of any future terrorist attack, is also becoming clearer with the formation, at the Washington, DC-based National Guard Bureau headquarters, of a Homeland Security Directorate. In the event of a terrorist attack, the Governor of the state concerned, as commander-in-chief of that state’s National Guard, will be responsible for the decision on whether to call up the Guard for state service. If that state’s Guard resources are overwhelmed, support can be requested from both neighboring states’ civilian and National Guard homeland security resources through an arrangement known as the Emergency Mutual Assistance Compact. While this process is under way, the Homeland Security Directorate will monitor the situation and keep the Northern Command advised of the progress of disaster response. If the situation escalates to the point where calling the Guard into federal service may become necessary, this communications process will insure that the Northern Command enters the picture fully informed. At that point Joint Task Force Civil Support might well deploy to the affected area to oversee the military contribution to the relief effort. The Task Force is commanded by a National Guard Major General. No decision has been reached as to whether liaison offices will be established with the emergency management offices of the 54 states and territories, in many of which the role is filled by the state National Guard HQ.
One other point regarding the National Guard’s relationship with the new command has just recently been settled. Earlier this year Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) introduced legislation stipulating that the deputy commander-in-chief be selected from the National Guard. In a Sept. 19, 2002, news release, however, the deputy commander-in-chief was announced as the current deputy commander of Space Command and NORAD, Army Lieutenant General Edward Anderson, thus shifting the current NORAD/Space Command hierarchy into NORTHCOM without change. Major General H. Steven Blum, former commander of the National Guard’s 29th Infantry Division, has been assigned as the new command’s Chief of Staff, and depending on how the Guard’s role develops within the command, a guardsman could be given the deputy commander’s position in the future. However, it would be preferable first for Guard officers to gain greater experience in various posts at the three-star level before being thrust into this critical high-level command position, as the National Guard only has one officer even at three-star, Lieutenant General rank, the director of the National Guard Bureau. Given the compressed time available before the new command is activated, a decision was obviously made that to try and insert any officers thought specifically to have superior homeland defense expertise was more trouble than it was worth. To be fair, it must be noted that both Generals Eberhart and Anderson have probably gained a good deal of homeland defense experience since the formation of Northern Command was announced earlier this year.
In summary, several important mechanisms of the new command are now becoming clear. Only time will now tell how well the command performs along the road to full operational capability, set for a year after formation on Oct. 1, 2003.
More U.S. Military Aid Released to Colombia
Victoria Garcia, Research Assistant, vgarcia@cdi.org
On Sept. 9, 2002, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage announced that Colombia met the human rights conditions required by Congress to release approximately $42 million in aid for Colombian security forces (known as certification). Terms of releasing the aid specifically stipulated that the Colombian Armed Forces suspend all ties to the right wing paramilitary group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which was designated a terrorist organization by the State Department in September 2001. (However, even while granting certification, State Department spokesperson, Richard A. Boucher, admitted that more should be done to sever the known links between the military and paramilitary personnel in Colombia.) Other stipulations included proving that the Colombian military has been cooperating with civilian prosecutors in human rights cases and suspending any military personnel that are known human rights violators.
The certification of military aid has raised many concerns among human rights activists who argue that Colombia has not made noteworthy progress in the human rights realm. In May $62 million was released to the Colombian military after the approval of a similar certification process. Since January 2002 Colombian military personnel have reportedly arrested 416 suspected AUC members out of an estimated 10,000. Furthermore, Colombian military officials claim to have suspended only 6 officers and 10 enlisted men and dismissed about 30 others since May, due to their offensive behavior. This meager statistic does not reflect substantial progress in the suspension of ties between Colombian security and paramilitary forces. Nonetheless, a few weeks after the approval of the funds, newly elected Colombian President Uribe met with President Bush pleading for more U.S. military aid and support for the rampant campaign against narco-terrorism.
Even without the Colombian requests, the United States continues to fund operations in Colombia. The administration is proposing an estimated $450 million in aid in FY2003 for Colombia, of which more than 60% will be used for security forces. During the Clinton administration, the United States gave the Colombian government an estimated $1.7 billion in aid to help combat drug trafficking. Colombia produces approximately 90% of the cocaine sold in the United States and 60% of the heroin, thus justifying American involvement in Colombia’s ongoing drug war. On June 6, 2002, however, Congress allowed for the first time a change in the mission of U.S. aid—from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism. Critics have been very weary of this change in mission; as it gives Colombian officials more leeway to use U.S. foreign aid to finance Colombia’s ongoing civil war.
Former Colombian President Andres Pastrana has been widely criticized for not efficiently addressing Colombia’s drug problem, despite the millions in military assistance being pumped into the country by the United States. Indeed, rather than reducing the drug problem and minimizing the civilian death toll, the war has only escalated, averaging 3,600 civilian deaths a year due to the civil conflict. Despite the millions donated by the United States for drug crop eradication, the estimated amount of coca and poppy has only increased.
President Uribe is making all attempts to separate himself from Pastrana’s policies and has taken a hard-line approach to the Colombian strife. On Aug. 12, five days into his presidential term, Uribe declared a nationwide state of emergency and imposed a 1.2% tax on high-income businesses and individuals. This tax is expected to generate about $800 million, almost double of Colombia’s current defense budget, to be used for Colombia’s security forces in addition to the U.S. aid. Additionally, as part of the 9-month state of emergency decree, the armed forces are allowed to restrict civilian movement, conduct warrantless searches, and restrict information reported by the media, in an attempt to cut off civilian support of the guerillas. Aerial fumigation of narcotics has resumed since Uribe took office, yet no crop substitution programs have been put into place. Uribe also hopes to form additional military brigades to build up Colombian defense forces. Uribe plans to enlist up to 40,000 civilians to supplement Colombian security forces in rural areas currently ruled by guerilla and paramilitary forces. This plan, however, has been widely criticized by human rights organizations that fear that by militarizing more of the civilian population in an effort to counter domestic insurgent and paramilitary groups, the government is creating its own paramilitary groups.
Also coinciding with the release of the U.S. military aid to Colombia was Sept. 24 drug-trafficking indictments of three members of the AUC, including paramilitary leader Carlos Castaño. The indictment accuses the offenders of bringing more than 17 tons of Cocaine into the United States and Europe since 1997. While all three AUC members remain at large in Colombia, Castaño has repeatedly vowed that he is innocent and has promised to surrender to U.S. authorities. On Sept 25, Castaño responded to the request for his extradition in a statement to a private Colombian TV channel, stating that he would only turn himself in to the U.S courts if the same requests were made for the leaders of the leftist guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
Drug trafficking and terrorism have been major components of Colombia’s civil war for almost four decades, and critics fear that the United States is only further embroiling itself in a uniquely Colombian problem. But it seems as though the Bush administration and the Uribe administration have many shared interests. Colombia, along with Peru and Bolivia, is now eligible to reap the benefits of the newly approved Andean Trade Promotion and Drug Eradication Act (ATPDEA). Under this law, ratified Aug. 6 as part of the Trade Act of 2002, an estimated 700 Colombian exports will have duty-free access to U.S. markets in compensation for their anti-drug efforts. About 6,000 Colombian products already enjoy these benefits. Additionally, the recently released U.S. national security strategy highlights Washington’s intent to continue aiding Colombia in defeating narco-terrorism -- "we are working to help Colombia defend its democratic institutions and defeat illegal armed groups of both left and rights by extending effective sovereignty over the entire national territory and provide basic security to the Colombian people." It is clear that regardless of Colombia’s human rights records or clear successes in drug eradication efforts, U.S. military involvement in Colombia has been cemented for many years to come.
CBO: Iraq War Could Cost $44 Billion -- A report released this week by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that war with Iraq could cost $44 billion. The estimate is based on a force of 370,000 deployed personnel focused on heavy ground elements, and combat lasting 3 months. A lighter force, focused on air units and deploying 250,000 personnel for three months could cost $34 billion. Costs of an occupational force of between 75,000 and 200,000 would run between $1 billion and $4 billion per month. In releasing the figures, CBO wrote, "Estimates of the total cost of a military conflict with Iraq and the conflict's aftermath are highly uncertain and depend on many unknown factors..." Click here to see the full text of the report.
Thousands of Chem-Bio Suits Defective -- 250,000 of the Pentagon’s inventory of suits designed to protect troops from chemical and biological weapons may be defective, UPI reports (Oct. 2). In 1996 it was discovered that over 750,000 of the suits were defective when some were sent to Bosnia. The Defense Logistic Agency has said that it has identified all the faulty suits, but Raymond Decker, director of the General Accounting Office's defense capabilities and management section, this week told the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security that, "we have received no evidence they have found [the remaining defective] 250,000 suits." The only way to determine if the suits are defective is to compare the numbers on the individual packages, and there is a possibility that defective suits could be handed out to troops deploying for combat operations.
Sonar Possible Cause in Whale Deaths -- A preliminary study into the deaths of 15 beaked whales last week off the Canary Islands indicates that the mammals suffered ear and brain trauma that may have been caused by high-intensity sonar. The deaths occurred during a multi-national naval exercise hosted by the Spanish government and involved 11 other NATO members including the United States. The exercise, which involved 58 ships, six submarines and 30 aircraft, was halted early at the request of the Canary Island government, and Spanish officials immediately began an investigation. The affect of active sonar on marine mammals has gained increased attention since the July decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to permit the U.S. Navy to expand testing of a new lowfrequency active sonar system which critics say is harmful to sea life.
Boeing, GD Miss Payment Deadline -- Boeing and General Dynamics have failed to pay $2.3 billion owed to the U.S. Navy as part of the A-12 program settlement by DoD’s Sept. 30 deadline. The payment is a court-awarded settlement over the failed A-12 "Avenger" fighter aircraft program, which was canceled by the Pentagon in 1991 after a series of cost overruns and development delays. While the contractors and the Pentagon continue to negotiate a payment plan, the Defense Department is preparing to begin withholding payments due to the companies for work being don on existing contracts.
Quotation of the Week -- "Iraq has indeed sponsored terrorism in the past but always of the traditional variety: it sought to eliminate Iraqi opponents abroad or, when conspiring against others, to inflict enough harm to show the costs of confronting it. But Mr. Hussein has remained true to the unwritten rules of state sponsorship of terror: never get involved with a group that cannot be controlled and never give a weapon of mass destruction to terrorists who might use it against you," Daniel Benjamin, former member of the National Security Council, from an op-ed in The New York Times, September 30, 2002.
This Week on SUPERPOWER: Global Affairs TV -- "North Korea -- Teetering on the Axis of Evil?"
North Korea has long been seen as an entrenched foe eager strike out against its neighbors and American allies, yet recent developments suggest the rogue state may be on the verge of changing its ways. How is the "Hermit Kingdom" perceived by countries in the region? Has there been a sincere change in North Korean policy or are recent diplomatic gestures part of a larger effort to distance itself from fellow "Axis of Evil" member Iraq?
Joining Superpower moderator Mark Thompson of Time Magazine this week to examine the issue will be Minxin Pei, Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Balbina Hwang, Policy Analyst with the Heritage Foundation; and Nori Sawaki, Washington Bureau Chief from the Japanese Newspaper, Tokyo Shimbun.
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