Military fears 'unknown quantity'

February 26, 2008
By Rowan Scarborough -

Members of Washington's military and defense establishment are expressing trepidation about Sen. Barack Obama, as the Illinois senator comes closer to winning the Democratic presidential nomination and leads in national polls to become commander in chief.

But his backers, including a former Air Force chief of staff, say the rookie senator believes in a strong military, and with it, a larger Army and Marine Corps. "

Any military person who concludes he's a left-wing, hair-on-fire, Kumbaya child of the '60s has sadly misunderestimated him, to use George Bush's term," said retired Gen. Merrill McPeak. (See comments below about Gen McPeak and his time as AF Chief of Staff - Sam)

Still, the mostly conservative retired officers, industry executives and current defense officials interviewed by The Washington Times cite Mr. Obama's lack of experience in national security. They also point to his determination to pull American combat units from Iraq at a time when a troop surge has reduced violence, damaged al Qaeda and allowed the Iraqi government to progress toward Sunni-Shia-Kurd reconciliation.

"We're very concerned about his apparent lack of understanding on the threat of radical Islam to the United States," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who is pro-Iraq war and a Fox News analyst. "A lot of retired senior officers feel the same way."

Mr. Obama also has stirred concern in national security circles by pledging to talk to the leaders of rogue nations, such as Iran and North Korea, without preconditions.

His urging of the Bush administration to conduct air strikes against terrorist targets in Pakistan without its approval is privately derided inside the Pentagon as the way to ruin relations with a good ally. Pakistan will not allow U.S. combat troops to operate on its soil. Questions about Mr. Obama's commander-in-chief qualifications have reached the campaign trail.

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No other Obama proposal brings more military criticism than his plan to bring home one to two combat brigades per month from Iraq — meaning all such units would be out by the end of 2009, his first year in office.

A senior Pentagon official said an Obama swearing-in "will give the Arab street the final victory, the best optics, and the ultimate in bragging rights.

They win. We lose." Retired Army Gen. John Keane, an architect of the Iraq troop surge, worries that talk of a U.S. pullout makes reconciliation more difficult. Gen. Keane has not endorsed any presidential candidate. "

Anyone who is advocating a precipitous pullout of U.S. forces, believing this will be a catalyst for political progress, does not understand the realities of Iraq and the minds of the key political leaders," Gen. Keane told The Washington Times. "The U.S. military presence is the glue that is holding things together in Iraq and is the fundamental reason for the recent political progress. If you remove this presence, the political leaders in Iraq will believe they are on their own and will fall prey to their own fears and paranoia. ... They will bunker down and the political progress will come to a dead stop."

Mr. Korb said Mr. Obama has a "technically sound" proposal for withdrawing troops. He said that the candidate realized before the war, unlike many politicians in Washington, that things would go wrong in Iraq.

"If you go back and you look at the speech he gave on Iraq before the war, I think that it was very well reasoned and well argued," the adviser said. As a state senator in 2002, Mr. Obama said, "I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a U.S. occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences."

Gen. McPeak, who is an Obama campaign co-chairman, said the senator's intelligence will dazzle the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

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Defense industry executives worry that Mr. Obama will end six years of defense budget increases and, as he has repeatedly said on the campaign trail and in debates, tap into war and military funds to support his plan for universal health care. "We've got some trepidation.

There is no track record," said an industry executive of the first-term senator. "He's an unknown quantity and that scares us a little bit."

The National Journal ranked Mr. Obama as the Senate's most liberal member in 2007, based partly on his string of votes in favor of amendments that mandated a combat troop pullout from Iraq.

Mr. Obama does, however, acknowledge that America is in a war against extremists.

"The terrorists are at war with us," he said in "The War We Need to Win," a major policy speech. "They seek to create a repressive caliphate.

To defeat this enemy, we must understand who we are fighting against, and what we are fighting for." One of his five pillars for winning is, "getting out of Iraq and on to the right battlefield in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

The Obama campaign has assembled a team of national security advisers, most of whom worked in the Clinton administration, including former national security adviser Anthony Lake. To date, Mr. Obama has attracted few retired admirals and generals as supporters.

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For complete article see: http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080226/NATION/476716884/1001&template=printart

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