Lynch's Star

Major General Rick Lynch has been popping up on the news and at Pentagon briefings a lot lately. According to some, he is well thought of in the military community. He seems to be living up to the Army's Campaign Plan, communicating the Army's message the way it wants — even writing a column carried as news in the Third ID's local paper. Some reporters and at least one other officer are uncomfortable with this as it seems to walk close to the edge of propaganda.

Over the weekend, CNN ran a "special investigations unit" show about the poor planning, lack of material and aftercare, and the effects on troops of the current wars. Although I think they are a bit late to the table with this I'm glad they noticed. As part of that show, CNN played an interview with MG Lynch conducted by Wolf Blitzer. In some ways, it seemed to me that CNN gave the general yet another forum to disseminate the administration's line with little requirement to account for his assertions. My ears always perk up when generals make unattributed assertions and label them as fact. Remember Colin Powell's little aside that "...these are facts, not assertions"? Oops.

MG Lynch was in the hot seat for the Pentagon Friday. Speaking through a satellite phone, he is now widely quoted as walking back the September status report date for progress on the "surge". Major news outlets ran stories titled "US General Warns Against Iraq Withdrawal." He's gotten kudos for straight talk before, but he apparently bought into and then sold the administration's talking points hard this weekend.

LYNCH: Well, we have got to block the flow of those munitions into Iraq, you know? Just recently, Multinational Division Center became the owner of Wasit province as well, in terms of expanded battle space. And that is a piece of the Iranian-Iraqi border. And we are going to work operations to block that flow of munitions into Iraq.

BLITZER: But -- and I just want to be precise on this. There's no inclination right now, and correct me if I'm wrong, to actually cross the border and go into Iran to try to stop this flow? LYNCH: No inclinations at all. We're just trying to keep it from coming into here. We've got to stop the trucks that are carrying munitions, stop the trucks that are carrying these EFPs so they're not killing our soldiers, Iraqi soldiers or innocent Iraqis.

BLITZER: Do you have enough troops to block that border, to prevent those kinds of munitions from coming into Iraq?

LYNCH: Yes, commanders on the ground never have enough troops. You never will have enough troops. What you do is take the troops that you do have and you appropriately position them based on intelligence — we talk about intelligence–driven operations &mdash and put them at the right place on the battlefield to have an effect on the enemy. And I have got enough troops to do that. – from CNN Transcripts

Talk about the Jedi mind trick:
"Do you have enough troops?"
"Yes, commanders on the ground never have enough troops."

Wow — that guy can turn a talking point and spin it on his little finger. He does let the cat peek out of the bag by mentioning that he has only about half the Iraqi troops he needs to get the job done. Blitzer doesn't follow up in a meaningful way and they both quickly move on to counting bodies from a recent fire fight. They jump around topics so quick that Lynch's report of a mass reenlistment serves as an answer to a question about national strategy.

But once again, it is Lynch's unchallenged assertions that stick in my craw. He says that "I know Iran is causing problems in my battle space. I've had 32 EFP strikes. Those EFP munitions are — we can trace those back to Iran, no doubt. Machinist capability, weapons manufacturing capability." With no more evidence than all the other accusations against Iran, he lists them as one of his top problems, yet seems to have no plan for counteracting them or is happy to not resource that plan. This makes my head hurt. If indeed Iran is sending all these munitions into Iraq, why are we not controlling that border? Why don't we observe the border, screening the routes in and out and destroy the vehicles carrying all these EFP? If the flow of arms from Iran is truly the biggest problem in your battlespace and you don't have the resources to stop it then you DON'T HAVE ENOUGH RESOURCES — be it personnel or material.

Earlier this month, Lynch stated that he had no MRAPs at all in his sector.

"GEN. LYNCH: Yeah, Mike, I have none of the MRAPs, and I'm not sure when they're coming in. I know there's a plan on the part of the Army and the theater here to get us the MRAPs; we have none now... We're all excited about getting the MRAPs. Anything that improved the force protection of our soldiers, we're all excited about it. "

But apparently not excited enough to want to get his Soldiers into that protection now or find out when it's coming.

This guy,intentionally or not, is carrying a deeply politically-charged message with the force of his general's stars. He misses opportunities to call for a more comprehensive strategy or resources that his Soldiers could truly use, like more troops. Whatever my opinion is of the "surge" or how it plays on any politician's rating, the troops on the ground are stretched, hot, tired, overburdened, and under-rested. The equipment they are using is ground up and frequently fails them. The country is left with a dangerously thin edge of defense should any other large-scale conflict break out and there isn't as big a "stick" in our foreign policy portfolio.

Finally, even if the entire "surge" were to wildly succeed tomorrow, with all Iranian influence ending, AQI departing, and the Sunnis and Shia engaging in hug-fests — there'd still be not enough Iraqi security forces ready to stand up and no effective building capacity ready to take over. Apparently that's okay with the general.