WME's Found in Iraq

“The more successful you are, the more spectacular the events,” Holmes said. “The spectacular attacks are what I call attacks using weapons for mass effect. And they’re designed, in my mind, to do just that, to create this mass effect for spectacular coverage in the media, to create spectacular terror in the mind of a population, to create chasms in national wills, (and) to create doubt in military forces.” The most recent in a series of roundtables held by Senior Department of Defence officials updates Gen. Holmes' opinion of the continued success in Iraq being overshadowed by negative press coverage and emphasized his desire for a unified front against terrorism. These roundtables are intended to increase public awareness of internal military opinions without compromising National Security. Bloggers Roundtable A major advantage of these roundtables is to aid in communication with outside sources and allow fresh perspectives to be added to the top of the chain. One of the first questions posed in the roundtable was provided by Andrew Lubin from ON Point who raised the issue of NCO's and other senior leaders of the Pakinstani Army being sent to America for specialized training. The question was if there were any plans to do the same for the Iraqi's to aid in their training by placing it in a more westernized environment. Gen. Holmes responded that he had not heard of that, but thought it a very good idea that might aid in strengthening our relationships and influencing partnership. While keeping classified information secret, Gen. Holmes was willing to cite classified information as a basis for his opinions and some of the categorizations you may hear quoted in the headlines. For instance while maintaining the differences between resistance, insurgent, and terrorist fighters; Gen. Holmes responded to a question regarding a counter-surge emphasized the damage being done and the time needed for them to recover despite possible appearances of a counter-surge when faced with three separate and viable entities. He described these as

And again I go back to it's not just--that's why I use and spread the term out, resistance fighters, insurgents and terrorists, because in my mind it's threaded through many interest groups that range from in some cases organized crime, to ethnic and tribal interest groups, to some external actor interest groups, to the terrorists.

Gen Holmes offered hope as he discussed progress in Iraq, such as the building of schools, clinics, and orphanages. He felt that these potential positive types of news were being overshadowed by spectacular events designed just for that purpose. He also stated that this represents a pinnacle of ever evolving warfare that must be recognized and incorporated.

And where does the culminating point come in this type of battle? That's hard to say, because this requires a unity of effort across all lines of operation other than military. So this is where now as you look at this kind of fight and we look clearly to other partners across the interagency, across international, partnering in some cases even with non-governmental organizations, to say when is it that we do enough in this fight that we reach a culminating point so that security operations do what they are intended to do.

He went onto say that IED's (Improvised Explosive Devices) were themselves WME's, used to demoralize U.S. forces and public opinion using standard terrorist tactics. IED's are used with, militarily speaking, minimal efficiency. Only a small number of personnel are killed at a time using them, however they are still widely used over a broad geographic area, including outside Iraq. He refused to specifically name the Iranian government as being involved despite positively identifying Iranian influence and specifically to the Qods force as part of his ideal of increasing diplomacy. By focusing media attention away from these negative terrorist actions, we may create a more positive worldview in which foreign agencies are more inclined to give assistance, such as is seen in Pakistan where the EU, UN, and other government aid agencies are hard at work. By destroying these networks of terrorism, specifically decreasing the terror by emphasizing progress, we may improve the morale and welfare of the Iraqi people as they rebuild their country. By reporting in more balanced manner, history may remember the good done along with the good intentions despite partisan squabbling that do nothing more than further divide while strengthening an enemy network designed to capitalize on the pessimism from such a state of affairs. Related Stories: Progress Continues in Iraq, Despite Singular Acts of Violence Gen. Holmes Biography