It Takes More Paperwork to Kill a Terrorist Than To Go To the Moon

It Takes More Paperwork to Kill a Terrorist Than To Go To the Moon




If you’re wondering why we’re having so much trouble winning the War on Terror, here’s how much bureaucracy taking out a Taliban terrorist involves.
http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/11/24/tales_of_war_getting_12_approvals_for_a_relatively_minor_mission_in_afghanistan

I explained that for the more complex missions, such as a mission to search for a weapons cache or to kill or capture a Haqqani commander, my Special Forces teams had to assemble a forty-slide conop for briefing and approval by a dozen higher headquarters if the team wanted to use helicopters.

“A dozen command approvals?” Vickers asked me incredulously. “Name them.” The lieutenant colonel who was accompanying him glared at me over Vickers’ shoulder.

“Absolutely. Now, assuming that the targeted Taliban commander has gone through all the hoops to verify that he is indeed bad, which is a painstaking process in itself, my ODAs then have to put together a full mission brief and get it approved by”-I ticked them off on my fingers-”one, the Special Forces company commander; two, the Special Operations Task Force commander at Bagram; three, the Special Forces group commander at Bagram; four, the Special Forces general in Kabul in charge of all Special Operations Forces; five, the local battle space owner [conventional battalion commander]; six, the battle space owner’s brigade commander [the conventional brigade commander]; and seven, the regional commanding general at Bagram for eastern Afghanistan.”

Vickers’ brow was furrowed. I continued. “Then, if the mission is using helicopters that belong to the conventional units, as most of them do, we also would have to brief, eight, the aviation battalion commander, and nine, the aviation brigade commander.” If the mission was going after Taliban leadership, I said, then the ISAF commander or one of his deputies had to provide his approval. “That’s ten briefs.

“Finally, sir, as you know,” I continued, “we are proud of the fact that we always conduct our missions with our partnered Afghan Army units. But that also means their leadership should be informed. So we also brief the ANA battalion commander; who in turn needs to brief his boss, the ANA brigade commander. That’s numbers eleven and twelve.” I had run out of fingers.

That’s a walk in the park compared to strikes on ISIS which are practically being run out of the White House and have a lot more civilian approvals in the mix. We have the power. We just can’t use it.



Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam. He is completing a book on the international challenges America faces in the 21st century.