The Buzz

Can't Produce Anything, bluegill biosensors and lessons from Israel.

Can't Produce Anything

The Coalition Provisional Authority, which ruled Iraq after the 2003 U.S. invasion until July 2004, has been taking it on the chops. In July, the special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction released "Lessons in Contracting and Procurement," finding the CPA's efforts were understaffed, its buyers often unqualified and its project management office woeful at defining what it wanted from contractors.

In August, a federal judge found the CPA was not a U.S. federal government entity and tossed out a $10 million verdict against a contractor found to have overcharged for providing a new Iraqi currency. The jury verdict was the first in a civil fraud case arising from Iraq reconstruction; other cases await judgments.

Then, in the September/October issue of Foreign Policy magazine, Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post assistant managing editor and former Baghdad bureau chief, blasted the CPA and Bush administration war planners for marginalizing the State Department and U.S. military, among others, from postwar preparations. The result, wrote Chandrasekaran, was that the military carried out local day-to-day governance and reconstruction, while the CPA shut it out of shaping policy.

Ambassador L. Paul Bremer, who headed the CPA, saw Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, top commander in Iraq, as incompetent. Sanchez viewed Bremer as imperious, Chandrasekaran reported. Of Bush loyalists serving in the CPA, he wrote, "They spent more time interacting with fellow Americans than Iraqis. Still, they were convinced they knew what was best for Iraq."

As for military service members, "The CPA, they joked, stood for 'Can't Produce Anything.' 'Nobody has any idea what they do back in that palace," a senior Marine in Fallujah told Chandrasekaran.

Scaly Sentinels

In platoons of eight, they pull guard duty at the Army's Fort Detrick in Maryland. During three-week deployments, they protect the purity of water from the Monocacy River that flows throughout the post after it is treated and chlorinated.

Two years ago in May, the platoon on duty sounded an alarm after detecting contamination streaming in from the river. The unit activated an auto-dialer to call environmental health staffers and an automatic sampler to investigate. The substance was poisonous. Some gave their lives.

Yet their still, silent watch continues-bluegills protecting their homeland . . . and ours.

Sounds fishy, but it's true. A partnership between the Army's Center for Environmental Health Research and Intelligent Automation Corp., a San Diego machinery diagnostics firm, produced the Intelligent Aquatic BioMonitoring system, which uses bluegills, a variety of freshwater sunfish, as biosensors to warn of contamination by accident or terrorists' design. The May 2004 substance turned out to be a pesticide or herbicide.

It works like this: Water runs through a box the size of a two-drawer file cabinet where the fish are billeted in 1-inch by4-inch chambers. Electrodes mounted at top and bottom monitor their breathing, swimming and behavior. If anything abnormal surfaces, the machine notifies the human chain of command via the Web or phone and kicks on a neural network reasoning system to analyze the water.

The Army originally used bluegills to monitor groundwater treatment at a dumping ground for chemical warfare agents, unexploded ordnance and other wastes at Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, not far from Fort Detrick.

In August, IAC announced that New York City and San Francisco have bought bluegill-based water-watching systems.

Lessons From Israel

Missile-lobbing between Israel and Hezbollah hadn't ceased before Anthony H. Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, issued "Preliminary 'Lessons' of the Israeli-Hezbollah War" Aug. 17. Here's some of his advice:

  • Learn from Israel that "problems and reverses need immediate official examination and criticism begins from the top down."
  • Get used to opponents using noncombatants as shields and civilian casualties to exploit the political impact of strikes.
  • Modern technology can't prevent a skilled urban force from coercing the United States to fight it largely on its own terms.
  • Avoid entering combat without a decisive strategy and goals. Israel chose the worst of all worlds: It "escalated an air campaign in ways that could not have a decisive strategic effect and dithered for weeks in a land battle designed to minimize military casualties."
  • Enemies increasingly will arm nonstates actors with relatively advanced weapons instead of confronting us directly.
  • Keep air power in proportion.
  • Prepare for the wars you might have to fight, not the ones you want to fight.

NEXT STORY: Letters

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.