{"id":182,"date":"2013-11-11T02:33:23","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T02:33:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/?p=182"},"modified":"2013-11-12T21:22:30","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T21:22:30","slug":"knowledge-is-expensive-veterans-day-2013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/?p=182","title":{"rendered":"Knowledge is Expensive – Veterans Day 2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Knowledge is Expensive<\/strong><\/p>\n

Veterans day celebrates those who have served the country in the military services.\u00a0 There are many members of the military who served with me in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG).\u00a0 Overall there were more than 1500 people who participated in the ISG mission.<\/p>\n

Four were killed. Six were very badly wounded.\u00a0 Three of these individuals, by their actions, saved my life.<\/p>\n

During Operation Hull, a successful effort to identify and curtail an insurgent effort to create chemical weapons, an explosion took place on April 26, 2004 that killed Sgt. Lawrence Roukey and Sgt. Sherwood Baker.\u00a0 Badly wounded were:\u00a0 SGT Michelle Hufnagel; SPC Brian Messersmith; SGT Darren Miles; SPC Ryan Owlett; and SGT Joseph Washam.<\/p>\n

On November 8, 2004 I was travelling along airport road in a convoy and was attacked by a VBIED (a suicide bomber in a red Kia car loaded with several 155mm shells).\u00a0 The following armored suburban drove to block the VBIED once they realized it was a threat.\u00a0 The detonation killed SFC Clinton Wisdom and SPC Don Clary.\u00a0 SPC Nathan Gray was seriously wounded.\u00a0 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of al-Qa\u2019ida in Iraq claimed credit.<\/p>\n

Knowledge can be very expensive.\u00a0\u00a0 The lives lost during the Iraq Survey Group Mission were invaluable.<\/p>\n

Lack of knowledge can also be very expensive.\u00a0 That\u2019s why we are in the intelligence business.\u00a0 Sadly, knowledge, like wisdom, can come too late.<\/p>\n

The ISG detailed the Iraq Weapons of Mass Destruction problem and much more in a remarkable way.\u00a0 The ISG report has been studied and is being studied to this day. It is a remarkable product with concrete consequences.<\/p>\n

The United States, and indeed many countries involved in the Iraq developments have learned from this work.<\/p>\n

Certainly at a personal level, I have spent a lot of time teaching lessons based on the ISG efforts to intelligence officers, policy makers, and other students of national security and foreign affairs during the last nine years.\u00a0 Hopefully, some better decisions are being made today because of what we learned in Iraq.<\/p>\n

As a case in point, I would point to the direction the United States and other countries have taken regarding Syrian Chemical Weapons.\u00a0 Knowledge from the ISG is directly shaping those efforts.\u00a0 We have steered a wiser, less destructive path drawing upon the lessons of Iraq and the ISG.\u00a0 We know more about how regimes behave, more about the effectiveness of UN inspections, and more about the unintended consequences of military actions.\u00a0 Decision-makers in Washington often learn on the job.\u00a0 I am grateful that some reach back to those who had experience in the past to guide their efforts.<\/p>\n

The Iraq Survey Group members who gave their lives and their families and friends have suffered enormous loss.\u00a0 Others suffered grievous wounds and long rehabilitation.\u00a0 Others risked their lives far from the safety of home to participate in the ISG.<\/p>\n

I can only say thank you.<\/p>\n

The Defense Intelligence Agency recognized those killed during service with the ISG last Thursday in a ceremony at DIA headquarters.\u00a0 In the main entrance there is the Patriots Memorial, where plaques are displayed commemorating those who died in DIA service.\u00a0 They added the four ISG members.\u00a0 It was a somber reunion of ISG members.\u00a0 Those I spoke with were proud of their service.<\/p>\n

Most importantly, I hope the families of those killed derived something form the ceremony.\u00a0 The mothers, sisters, wives, and children of these men who died nine years ago deserve our thanks.\u00a0 I hope they got something out of the ceremony.\u00a0 It was for them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Knowledge is Expensive Veterans day celebrates those who have served the country in the military services.\u00a0 There are many members of the military who served with me in the Iraq Survey Group (ISG).\u00a0 Overall there were more than 1500 people … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,70,12,19,74],"tags":[40,3,39,76,41,9],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":184,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions\/184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.charlesduelfer.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}