Arab World Must Support Iraqi Progress, Gates Says

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 8, 2007 - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on Iraq's Arab neighbors today to help the Iraqis build on progress being made to ensure it succeeds as a peaceful, stabilizing force in the region. "Whether the positive trends of recent months continue will be determined largely by where we go from here," Gates told about 200 delegates from 23 countries here at the International Institute for Strategic Studies' annual Manama Dialogue. "And by 'we,' I mean not only the United States and the Iraqi government, but also the governments of every nation represented at this dialogue."

Gates urged the Arab world to "exercise your influence with the Iraqis and encourage them to meet their own goals and expectations, to live up to their own promises."

"I also urge you to help them in every way that you can – by dampening homegrown insurgencies, by alleviating sectarian strife, by providing economic and diplomatic support," he said.

Gates reminded the audience that what happens in Iraq will affect the entire region, and that they have a big stake in ensuring a positive outcome.

He said playing Monday-morning quarterback regarding the situation offers important lessons, but that dwelling on the past stands in the way of a positive outcome. "We have to get the next sequence right," he said during a question-and-answer session following his address. "The consequences of not doing so are huge."

The secretary painted a bleak picture of the ripple effect of a failure in Iraq, most immediately right in its own and in its' neighbors' own backyards. A failed state of Iraq would adversely affect every country in the region, he said.

"The forces that would be unleashed – of sectarian strife, of an emboldened extremist movement with access to sanctuaries – do not recognize national boundaries and would surely target any government perceived to be a hindrance to their expansion of power," he said.

Gates, who visited Iraq en route to the conference, said he saw signs of real progress. He noted a dramatic drop in violence, and economic and political progress that, while slower than it had been hoped to be, still offers promise.

Any nation that stands in the way of that progress – whether by supporting insurgents or illegal militias in Iraq directly or indirectly, or simply by withholding support – ultimately hurts itself, Gates said.

"But just as the nations of the Middle East have the most to lose from chaos in Iraq, they also have the most to gain from a secure, stable, and prosperous Iraq," the secretary said.

Gates called nations represented at the summit to become full partners in building an Iraq that contributes to security in the Persian Gulf region, provides a strong trading partner and serves as an example of good governance and reconciliation.

He assured them the United States will remain with them in the effort, even as it begins drawing down its force presence in Iraq.

Gates said he's seen a growing appreciation in the United States of the need for some kind of residual force to remain in Iraq under terms agreed to be the Iraqi government. Such a force likely would continue pursuing al Qaeda, assist with border security and training and equipping of Iraqi security forces, and "be some kind of a stabilizing force," he said.

The secretary noted doubts by some at last year's Manama Dialogue -- set against a backdrop of deteriorating security and escalating sectarian violence in Iraq -- about whether the United States could continue to stand by its commitments to Iraq and the region.

"The record of American activity over the past year should dispel that uncertainty," the secretary said. "The United States remains committed to defending its vital interests and those of its allies in Iraq and in the wider Middle East."

Also during his address, Gates pressed today for expanded multilateral cooperation in the region, which he said would provide broader protection against Iran and other destabilizing forces.

Multilateral Cooperation Critical to Gulf Region Security, Gates Says

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 8, 2007 - Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates pressed today for expanded multilateral cooperation that could better protect the Persian Gulf region against threats from Iran and other destabilizing forces. While emphasizing the importance of U.S. bilateral ties with many countries in the region, Gates told delegates at the Manama Dialogue here, it's time to pool their efforts more closely to bolster their collective security.

The annual summit, now in its fourth year, brings together about 200 senior military leaders from 23 countries to discuss mutual security interests.

Gates called broader security relationships, with closer multilateral ties and cooperation, "an absolute necessity" that will enhance the entire region's security. Such a framework could help pave the way for a regional air and missile defense system that would provide a regional defense umbrella and deter a missile attack, he added. Some elements that could contribute to such a system already are in the works. Just this week, the Defense Department notified Congress that it might sell upgraded AWACs airborne early warning systems to Saudi Arabia, and also announced a proposal to sell Patriot missile defense and early warning systems to Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates.

"We should bear in mind the deterrent effect such a system would have," Gates said. "If the chances of a successful attack are greatly reduced, then so too is the value of pursuing offensive weapons systems and delivery systems."

Gates told the delegates regional cooperation also would enhance maritime security by providing a better "maritime surface picture" and standardized procedures to improve defenses. These would help protect against seaborne threats such as terrorism, piracy, narcotics trafficking and smuggling, the secretary explained.

He also urged more cooperative military training and exercise participation to promote interoperability among participating countries' armed forces.

While urging leaders to get their countries to work more closely together, Gates emphasized that the United States remains committed to the region. He told them operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the challenges they present, haven't diminished U.S. resolve.

Gates quickly set the record straight when one delegate questioned whether some U.S. actions in the region consider U.S. interests alone.

With 40 years of personal engagement in the region, Gates told the questioner, he doesn't have "enough fingers and toes to count the times when the United States has helped its friends and allies in the region – all of its friends and allies."

He cited the U.S. role in liberating Kuwait from an Iraqi invader as a signal event, but said U.S. support goes far deeper.

"We have been the primary sponsor of virtually every peace agreement and cease-fire that has been signed in this region for the last 35 years."

"We have exercised a constructive influence in trying to promote positive change," he said.

Gates said the United States welcomes regional countries' efforts to "create their own narrative" or chart their own courses.

"That's the way it happens with sovereign states," he said. "But the United States is a friend and an ally, and we are prepared to work with you. And the truth of the matter is, we help you create the security climate in which you can create your own narrative."

Gates Calls for Continued International Pressure on Iran

By Donna Miles
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 8, 2007 - Days after a new national intelligence estimate concluded that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program but could restart it any time, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates called on the international community to keep up its pressure on Tehran. Gates told delegates at the Manama Dialogue security conference here that the report underscores the need for the international community to continue pressuring Iran to "come clean" about its activities and abandon the program altogether.

The NIE, issued Dec. 3, says the U.S. intelligence community believes Iran halted its covert nuclear weapons program -- which it denied existed -- in the fall of 2003. The report cites international scrutiny and pressure as the probable reasons.

Gates warned about 200 delegates from 23 nations attending the annual regional security conference about "cherry-picking" the NIE's findings rather than accepting "the full story" it gives.

"The report expresses with greater confidence than ever that Iran did have a nuclear weapons program – developed secretly, kept hidden for years, and in violation of its international obligations," he said.

The NIE unveils ongoing activities, too, Gates said. "It reports that they do continue their nuclear enrichment program, an essential long-lead-time component of any nuclear weapons program. It states that they do have the mechanisms still in place to restart their program," he said.

"And, the estimate is explicit that Iran is keeping its options open and could re-start its nuclear weapons program at any time – I would add, if it has not done so already."

Gates pointed to Iran's activities that defense officials report have left many of its neighbors feeling threatened. "Everywhere you turn, it is the policy of Iran to foment instability and chaos, no matter the strategic value or the cost in the blood of innocents," Gates said.

Navy Adm. William J. Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command and part of the U.S. delegation here, told reporters yesterday Iran's meddling – from supplying weapons to insurgents in Iran and Afghanistan to its seizure in March of 15 British sailors – is destabilizing to the United States as well as the Persian Gulf region.

"Their behavior has really been a problem, and to the extent that it destabilizes the region, which it does, then it becomes a problem for us," he said. "Everything they've done publicly has been a problem."

Gates said during a question-and-answer session following his address he's "not confident" high-level dialogue between the United States and Iran would do any good in light of Iran's inflammatory foreign policy. "Iran has to take some steps" for such a dialogue to be meaningful, he said.

Iran had been scheduled to send a delegation to the Manama Dialogue, but cancelled at the last minute.

In the meantime, Gates pointed to the international community as the only barrier to Iran re-starting its nuclear weapons program.

He urged Gulf-region leaders to pull together to demand that Iran "come clean" about past activities, suspend enrichment and openly affirm it has no plans to develop nuclear weapons. He also argued for them to demand inspections to make sure Iran lives up to its commitments and can't restart its nuclear weapons program at a moment's notice, or "at the whim of its most militant leaders."

Gates pressed for the international community to "continue – and intensify – our economic, financial and diplomatic pressures on Iran to suspend enrichment." He urged leaders to take the "peaceful but effective measures necessary to bring a long-term change of policies in Tehran."

Asked if the United States is planning a military confrontation with Iran, Gates emphasized that the U.S. focus is "100 percent diplomatic and economic."

The focus now, the secretary said, is trying to get the Iranians to change policies and practices that "should be a matter of grave concern to every government in world."

"We would like nothing better than for Iran to become a constructive player" in the region, he said.

Why We Serve: Marine from Big City Transformed by Iraqi Desert

By John J. Kruzel
American Forces Press Service

Dec. 7, 2007 - When the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks stoked his sense of patriotism, a 15-year-old from Queens, N.Y., decided to enlist in the U.S. military following high school graduation. "I felt like the country needed me to help fill a void in military service," said Marine Cpl. Sean M. Henry, who grew up just miles from downtown Manhattan, where hijackers barreled planes into the World Trade Center towers. "So I made the choice that I was going to join the Marine Corps in 2004 straight after high school."

Henry is one of 10 servicemembers selected to tell the military's story to the American public at community and business events, veterans organizations and other gatherings as part of the Defense Department's "Why We Serve" public outreach program.

Before Marine boot camp at Parris Island, S.C., Henry had no experience living outside the bustling New York City borough he calls home. And though anecdotes shared with him by Marines returning from Iraq helped him prepare for an impending deployment to Qaim, it did little to blunt the perennial city boy's culture shock upon landing in the desert town near the Iraq-Syria border.

"I'm from the city; you know what I'm saying? And everything in the Marines, especially in Iraq, was about map reading, finding the North Star and all that stuff," Henry said. "And me, being the kid from Queens, I'm like, man, where's the subway?"

As if being away from the cosmopolitan perks of the Big Apple weren't difficult enough, Henry found himself ensconced in the sandy, pastoral desert life of Qaim -- a western Anbar town with a dubious electrical grid -- attempting to bridge the enormous American and Arab cultural divides while battling an elusive enemy.

"I call them 'ghosts,' because the insurgents would fire at us, and we'd never see them," the corporal recalled, "then we'd fire back."

On average, Henry and his comrades waged war with proverbial ghosts a few times a week. Once, while Henry's unit was at a re-transmission post -- a tiny military structure located between main bases and fortified only by sandbags -- a torrential sandstorm engulfed the Marines.

"I said to myself, 'Wow, this is the perfect time for the enemy to attack us,'" Henry said. "And as soon as I finish my sentence, a piece of wood clips me and my ear starts bleeding."

When Henry looked into the distance, he saw muzzle flashes coming from a bridge about 600 feet away. "And I'm only 19 years old you know, and this is real hectic," he recalled. "So I get on my mortar pitch, and I'm firing 100-round relay mortars onto the bridge.

"After that, we stopped hearing them firing on us," he said.

The insurgents who tried to overtake the re-transmission post that day likely would have succeeded if Henry and his team had succumbed to the pressure of the firefight surrounding them, he said. "But I was just thinking to myself that I've gotta get those mortars on target or else we're history, because they're moving pretty quick -- they had vehicles too," he recalled. "Fear doesn't really come into play."

Henry said that because the Marines had trained him to perform amid the tension of a mortar fight, he maintained calm professionalism. Similarly, because Henry had expanded his cultural horizons while deployed in Qaim, he thrived in a second deployment that required him to work among local Iraqis in Habbaniyah.

"When we first got (to Habbiniyah), there weren't kids playing soccer in the street; there weren't military-age males going to and from work or to the market; that was something that we brought to them," he said. "They weren't allowed to walk outside, but all that stopped once we got there."

At the beginning of the deployment, Henry and his unit were fired upon regularly, he said. But during the middle and nearing the end of his deployment, the situation had improved dramatically, he said.

By that point, the mission took on a new humanitarian angle, he said, and shifted from regularly engaging in indirect-fire fights with insurgents, to stabilizing neighborhoods at the grassroots level. Near the end of the deployment, for instance, Henry spent time ensuring that Iraqi children were attending school and that they were equipped with pencils, paper, books and other school supplies.

Asked if the efforts of he and his fellow Marines were noticeable, the corporal replied, "Oh my goodness, yes."

Henry was hungry for action as a 19-year-old enlistee in Qaim, he recalled. But halfway through that first deployment, and during his second deployment in Habbiniyah, Henry said, he was eager to help train younger guys, adopting a kind of mentor role.

"Sometimes tears would come to (the young Marines') eyes when they would help the Iraqi people and the kids," he recalled.

Henry, who will marry his fiancée, Miranda, in June, seems imbued with a sense of youthful wisdom after his experience in Iraq.

"The most important thing Iraq taught me is that no matter what happens, it can always be worse," he said. "I've been in some of the world's most messed up situations, and then I get to the (United) States and I say, 'People think they have it bad, but they don't.'"

Henry said he's unsure how his life would have turned out had he not joined the Marines. "I probably would have gone to some community college, been struggling for money, ... I don't know," he said. "It wouldn't have been better than the circumstance I'm in now.

"I'm definitely happy with my choice," he said. "I look back on some of my buddies back home, and they're pretty much in the same situation as when I left them, and when I tell them about all the wonderful things I've done -- and the things that I'm doing -- their experiences can't compare."