I recounted this morning that La. Gov. Kathleen Blanco said on FoxNews Channel that she would ask President Bush to send federal troops to assist restoration and enforcement of civil order in the state.

She has not made such a request so far. According to a WaPo summary of developments, there are 11,000 National Guard troops activated in La. and Miss. under state control. The Defense Dept. announced this afternoon it is sending 10,000 more Guard troops to thje two states. I assume those Guard troops will have been federalized from other states. But they will not be assigned a civil-order mission.

This afternoon Assistant Defense Secretary Paul McHale was asked about using regular forces, or federalized Guard units, for law enforcement.

… McHale said this was a matter for civilian law enforcement agencies, possibly with National Guard units backing them up under the control of governors.

“In extraordinary circumstances,” he said, the president has authority to use active-duty military personnel to restore order. There is no expectation that such deployments will be necessary, McHale said, but “we do have units that are on alert” and are prepared to be dispatched if called upon.

McHale said the National Guard “has a deep enough bench” to be effective, despite large deployments to Iraq. As of this morning, he said, 60 to 65 percent of the Louisiana and Mississippi National Guard forces were available for domestic duty, he said, adding, “A very robust capability remains within the affected states.”

Furthermore, it seems that the looting that so so severe and widespread yesterday has pretty much spent itself. Bloomberg reports,

Looting was reported yesterday. There were no incidents reported today “but I wouldn’t be surprised it is happening,'’ Cowen [not further identified - DS] said. “We don’t have enough law enforcement to stop looting.'’ He said additional state troopers and National Guard troops will head into New Orleans.

There are no reports of martial law in the state, Cowen said today, adding that some parishes are under curfew.

Probably there’s nothing left to loot and once the TV and stereo snatchers found they couldn’t eat or drink them, the glamour wore off pretty quickly. I’d be willing to bet that within a couple of blocks of stores there is a lot of snatched stuff sunk under the water. It’s hard to lug a set of Michelins through chest high sludge, I’m guessing.

USS Alabama, a World War II battleship, has been moored at Mobile Bay, Ala., for many years. The ship saw heavy combat in the Pacific campaigns during the war but was never damaged by enemy action.

What the kamikazes could not do, Hurricane Katrina could. This morning it was discovered that the battleship is listing at its mooring.

Initial damage assessments show that Battleship ALABAMA (BB-60) has shifted position and is listing some 5+/- degrees to the portside or landside. The aft concrete gangway leading up to the ship has been critically damaged.

The ship may settle to the port bed, but won’t sink because the water isn’t deep enough there (I think). But the battleship park is closed indefinitely.

The US Army’s Field Manual 3-19.15, “Civil Disturbance Operations,” 18 April 2005, is the basic procedures manual for using Army forces to enforce civil order either in or out of the United States. Here are some excerpts relevant to the possibility of using federal troops to enforce civil order in Lousisana, now that Gov. Blanco has said she will ask for them.

FEDERAL INTERVENTION AND AID
B-1. Under the Constitution of the United States and United States Code, the President is empowered to direct federal intervention in civil disturbances to—

· Respond to state requests for aid in restoring order.

· Enforce the laws of the United States.

· Protect the civil rights of citizens.

· Protect federal property and functions.

…

B-3. The Constitution of the United States and federal statutes authorize the President to direct the use of federal armed troops within the 50 states and territories and their political subdivisions. The President is also empowered to federalize the NG of any state to suppress rebellion and enforce federal laws.

B-4. Federal assistance is provided to a state when the state has used all of its resources, including its NG, to quell a disorder and finds the resources insufficient. Usually, active duty federal forces are used to augment the NG of the requesting state. However, the President may choose to federalize the NG of another state and use them alone or with other forces to restore order.

B-5. … The President may employ armed federal troops to suppress … domestic violence … if … the civil authorities of a state cannot or will not provide adequate protection.

…

LEGAL CONSIDERATIONS AND CONTRAINTS

B-27. The Constitution of the United States, laws, regulations, policies, and other legal issues limit the use of federal military personnel in domestic support operations. Any Army involvement in civil disturbance operations involves many legal issues requiring comprehensive legal reviews.

B-28. … The Constitution of the United States allows the use of the federal military to execute or enforce the law when necessary to protect federal or civilian property and functions. However, significant restrictions exist on employing federal military forces within the United States.
…

POSSE COMITATUS
B-39. Generally, federal military forces may not give law enforcement assistance to civil authorities without conflicting with the Posse Comitatus Act. However, constitutional and statutory exceptions to this prohibition do exist. …
…

B-41. The Posse Comitatus Act prescribes criminal penalties for the use of the US Army or Air Force to execute the laws of or to perform civilian law enforcement functions within the United States. DOD policy extends this prohibition to the US Navy and Marine Corps. Prohibiting the military from executing the laws means that military personnel may not participate directly in—

· An arrest; a search and seizure; a stop and frisk; or an interdiction of vessels, aircraft, or vehicles.

· A surveillance or pursuit.

· A civilian legal case or any other civilian law enforcement activity as informants, undercover agents, or investigators.
…

Constitutional Exceptions to the Posse Comitatus Act

B-43. Under its inherent authority, the US government is responsible for preserving public order and carrying out governmental operations within its territorial limits, by force if necessary. Under the Constitution of the United States, exceptions allow the use of military force to execute or enforce the law. Some of the exceptions are to—

· Protect civilian property and functions.

· Ensure preservation of public order and carry out government operations, by force if necessary.

· Protect civil rights where local authorities do not or cannot protect them.

· Protect federal property and functions.

· Quell civil disturbances and labor strife that rises to the level of civil disorder.

B-44. The President may order the armed forces to support state civil authorities suffering from an insurrection or civil disturbance. He must act personally by first issuing a proclamation calling on insurgents to disperse and retire peacefully within a limited time. This occurred when federal forces were called in to counter the Los Angeles riots in 1992.

Protect Civilian Property and Functions

B-45. A sudden and unexpected civil disturbance, disaster, or calamity may seriously endanger life and property and disrupt normal governmental functions to such an extent that local authorities cannot control the situation. At such times, the federal government may use military force to prevent loss of life or wanton destruction of property and to restore government functions and public order. This exception has rarely been used.

Protect Federal Property and Functions

B-46. The federal government may use military force to protect federal property and federal government functions when local authorities cannot or decline to provide adequate protection.
…

Support to Civil Law Enforcement

B-49. It is DOD policy to cooperate with civilian law enforcement officials to the greatest practical extent. … US military forces are never placed under the command of civilian law enforcement officers or nonfederalized NG. DOD policy concerning the provision of military support to LEAs [“law-enforcement agencies” - DS], including personnel and equipment, are contained in DOD Directive 5525.5.
…

ROLES OF THE NATIONAL GUARD AND FEDERAL FORCES
B-51. The preservation of law and order in the civilian community is the responsibility of state and local governments and law enforcement authorities. When a civil disturbance in a civilian community turns to widespread rioting that includes arson, looting, and acts of violence, the civil authorities may decide that they do not have the resources to quell the riot. They may then turn to the NG and federal forces to support the civil authorities in restoring law and order. Civil disturbances in any form are prejudicial to public law and order.

National Guard Forces

B-52. The NG (as a state organization) responds to the governor according to state law for civil disturbance operations. … In extreme circumstances, the NG can be brought on federal service for civil disturbance operations when ordered to under the appropriate federal statute by the President. … The following are examples of appropriate missions for the NG:

· Manning traffic control points.

· Providing building security.

· Providing area security and patrols.

· Providing security at custody facilities.

· Providing security and escort for emergency personnel and equipment.

· Protecting sensitive sites.

· Transporting law enforcement personnel.

· Providing show of force.

· Dispersing crowds.

· Employing riot control munitions.

· Providing very important person (VIP) protection and escort.

· Providing quick reaction and reserve force.
…

B-54. The commitment of federal troops to deal with domestic civil disturbances must be viewed as a drastic measure of last resort. Their role should never be greater than what is absolutely necessary under the circumstances. Commanders should take every measure to avoid the perception of an invading force. A JTF [joint task force - DS] designated to respond to a civil disturbance should project the image of a restrained and well-disciplined force whose sole purpose is to help restore law and order with minimal harm to the people and property and with due respect for all law-abiding citizens.

B-55. The role of federal Army forces is to assist civil authorities in restoring law and order when the magnitude of the disturbance exceeds the capabilities of local and state LEA, including the NG. Under the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and selected federal statutes, the President may order the employment of the federal armed forces to aid local and state civil authorities to protect the Constitutional rights of citizens. Federal military forces may also protect federal facilities and installations in any state, territory, or possession.

A couple of key points:

1. Before ordering federal troops into a stricken area, the president “must act personally by first issuing a proclamation calling on insurgents to disperse and retire peacefully within a limited time.” In the case of New Orleans, this will lilely be a pro forma proclamation, since mass media and communications have pretty much disappeared from reaching the people doing the rioting. The way the manual of worded - the president “must” issue the proclamation - makes me think this is a step required by federal law. So when (if) such a proclamation is issued, it will be a key indication that measures close to actual martial law are nearer to being imposed.

2. If federal forces are deployed to the area for enforcement of civil order, they will not be placed under command of state or local authorities. If such a deployment is ordered, I anticipate that the La. Guard will be ordered into federal service. The regular or Army Reserve forces (both always under federal control only) may be placed under the command of the La. Adjutant General, a Guard major general.

Related posts:

“Martial law” rumor clarified

La. Gov. to ask for federal troops

Here are grabs of aerial shots of the levee breaches causing the flooding of New Orleans. My understanding is that there are two different breaches in the the 17th St. levee. Someone please leave a comment on whether this is correct.

Monday it looked like the French Quarter had dodged the bullet. This was a scene in the Quarter just after Katrina had moved northward.

No longer, sadly. With water rising to inundate the entire city, the Quarter is starting to go under. A scene from this morning:

Louisiana Gov. Blanco just said live on FNC that she will ask President Bush to send federal troops to conduct law enforcement in New Orleans and environs. It’s hard to see Bush refusing. This step moves the city closer to actual martial law. The president Congress has the authority under Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution to suspend the writ of Habeas Corpus when “public Safety may require it.” Historically, suspension of Habeas Corpus has been considered an indicator of martial law, as Abraham Lincoln did in the Civil War. (See J. Stuart’s correcting comment - DS)

We’ll have to wait to see what enforcement authority the federal troops will have when they arrive. I am guessing that the units sent will be military police from either or both of the regular Army and the Army Reserve.

Update: I have posted a fairly detailed look at what federal forces will do and how they will operate if they are sent by President Bush. Their employment is governed by law and regulation. The Army has procedures for using federal troops in enforcing domestic civil order.

Thanks to those who commented or emailed a story in the Times Picayune Just as I proposed,

But even though no martial law exists, Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s declaration of a state of emergency gives authorities widespread latitude to suspend civil liberties as they try to restore order and bring victims to safety. Under the Louisiana Homeland Security and Emergency Assistance and Disaster Act of 1993, the governor and, in some cases, chief parish officials, have the right to commandeer or utilize any private property if necessary to cope with the emergency.

The full story is here.

However, some sort of measure essentially like martial law, at least on the enforcement side, could come into play because civil order is disappearing in the city.

Just when you think it couldn’t get any worse, the N.O. Times-Picayune blog reports that the local children’s hospital is under siege:

Late Tuesday, Gov. Blanco spokeswoman Denise Bottcher described a disturbing scene unfolding in uptown New Orleans, where looters were trying to break into Children’s Hospital.

Bottcher said the director of the hospital fears for the safety of the staff and the 100 kids inside the hospital. The director said the hospital is locked, but that the looters were trying to break in and had gathered outside the facility.

The director has sought help from the police, but, due to rising flood waters, police have not been able to respond.

Bottcher said Blanco has been told of the situation and has informed the National Guard. However, Bottcher said, the National Guard has also been unable to respond.

Looting in the city is reported to be uncontrollable, with even police officers joining in. Mayor Nagin “Nagin also said that currently there is no martial law in the city of New Orleans, but he may order it on Wednesday.” With respect to the mayor, he has no authority to order martial law because he commands no military forces. All his authority for law enforcement in this disaster are specified in the Disaster Act of 1993, cited above, and they are less than those of the governor. As I said yesterday, the term “martial law” is being used as shorthand for very strict law enforcement, and I think that’s what the mayor meant, but why he would wait until today to order it, I don’t know.

Yesterday New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin said that 80 percent of the city was underwater. Now the mayor says that all of the city will be flooded severely since attempts to repair breaches in levees have failed.

Nagin said the rising water has caused the generators to stop operating because the water got too high. Due to that, Nagin said he’s been advised by the head technician at the sewage and water board that water in the east bank area of Orleans and Jefferson parishes will rise to levels equal to Lake Pontchartrain.

“It’s going to rise to 3 feet above seal level. For example, St. Charles Avenue is 6 feet below sea level, there will most likely be 9 feet of water on St. Charles Avenue,” Nagin said.

Also, if residents are in a part of city that is 10 feet below sea level, Nagin said the levels will probably rise to 13 feet of water.

He said the “bowl is now filling up” and the entire city will soon be underwater.

This fate beggars the mind to comprehend. The city is being literally destroyed before our eyes.

While so much of the world’s attention is focused on the areas striken by Katrina, there are other things still happening around the world - many of them rather strange. Gerard Van der Leun has a roundup.

International media have picked up the false report that martial law has been dclared in New Orleans. Even the Financial Times is reporting it, so is Times Online and Reuters.

With my eldest son`1 due to deploy to Iraq in perhaps as little as a week and a half, I am keeping one eye on developments there. Andthis development strikes me as good news:

RAMADI, Iraq, Aug. 30 — U.S. warplanes backed Sunni Arab tribal fighters on Tuesday in what tribal leaders called an unprecedented Sunni-led offensive to drive out Abu Musab Zarqawi’s forces.

Three days of ongoing fighting in towns near the Syrian border killed at least 61 people, at least 56 of them Tuesday, said Dr. Ali Rawi, emergency-room director at the hospital in the largest city near the fighting, Qaim, about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Forty-two of them wore the black training-suits and athletic shoes favored by Zarqawi’s fighters, Rawi said….

The clashes came after insurgents kidnapped and killed 31 men belonging to the Albu Mahal tribe because they had joined the Iraqi security forces, said Sheikh Muhammed Mahallawi, one of the tribe’s leaders.

“We decided, either we force them out of the city or kill them,” with the support of U.S. bombardment, Mahallawi said.

This action is the latest but biggest of a series of attacks Sunni Iraqis have carried out against al Qaeda terrorists, who are almost exclusively foreign. Earlier this month in Ramadi Sunni Iraqis fought al Qaeda to prevent the Islamists from expelling Shia Iraqis from western Ramadi and elsewhere in the Sunni triangle.

I’m frankly skeptical that New Orleans has been declared to be under martial law, as was reported this morning. Here’s why. There is an excellent online explanation of what martial law means.

Article 1, Section 9 of the Constitution implicitly authorizes the imposition of martial law.

“The privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” Habeas corpus is a concept of law, in which a person may not be held by the government without a valid reason for being held. A writ of habeas corpus can be issued by a court upon a government agency (such as a police force or the military). Such a writ compels the agency to produce the individual to the court, and to convince the court that the person is being reasonably held. The suspension of habeas corpus allows an agency to hold a person without a charge. Suspension of habeas corpus is often equated with martial law.

Martial law was declared during the American Civil War.

In the United States, there is precedence for martial law. Several times in the course of our history, martial law of varying degrees has been declared. The most obvious and often-cited example was when President Lincoln declared martial law during the Civil War. This instance provides us with most of the rules for martial law that we would use today, should the need arise.

There follows a recounting of the many instances when martial law was declared in American history. Finally, a key point:

The distinction must be made as clear as that between martial law and military justice: deployment of troops does not necessarily mean that the civil courts cannot function, and that is one of the keys, as the Supreme Court noted, to martial law.

I haven’t been able to discover who declared martial law in the city. It certainly was not President Bush. Was it Louisiana’s governor? It’s hard to see how anyone civil official lower than the governor could have done it, because no official lower than a governor actually has any troops to command.

I think it’s also possible that no official with the authority to declare martial law has actually done so, at least not in the true legal sense. It may be that the term is being used as a shorthand way of saying that civil order will be energetically, even ruthlessly, enforced by civil police and National Guard troops. I’m guessing also that the governor has empowered ordinary Guard soldiers to make arrests and has authorized Guard units to hold offenders prisoner without quickly turning them over to civil police.

What I do not expect to see is civilians being tried by military courts - the distinction indicated above that the Supreme Court has held key as to whether martial law has actually been imposed. It may be true that the capability of civil courts in New Orleans to try offenders has been ended for many days to come, but if so it’s also true that military courts have not been established there, either, and won’t be established before civil courts come back into operation.

Update: An example of imprecise use of the term is this:

Lancaster resident Jennifer Frenette had a brush with martial law yesterday in New Orleans.

When Hurricane Katrina finally passed through the city, she and others who had been virtual prisoners in the Hilton New Orleans Riverside Hotel decided to go outside for some fresh air.

A police officer told them if they didn’t go back inside, they’d be arrested. They went back inside. “It’s martial law. They’re being extra cautious,” she said.

No doubt the police officer was brusque and brooked no dissent, but that’s not martial law. There are dozens of circumstances in non-disaster contexts when you must either obey a police officer or be arrested.

Update, 12:35 p.m. CDT: FoxNews just emphatically announced that martial law has not been declared in New Orleans, and says it regrets the error of having announced it had been declared.

According to FoxNews reporter Shepherd Smith, in New Orleans, the emergency broadcast system has announced this morning that martial law is in effect and that “there are no civil rights” for New Orleans residents who remained in the city.

Update: Well, not so fast.

I posted here and here on the potential impact that Katrina will have on gasoline and petroleum-product prices.

Now Steve Verdon has some more detailed information and estimates that five percent of the nation’s refining capacity has been taken offline by the storm. According to a report I heard yesterday, the nation’s refineries were operating at 97 percent capacity before the storm. That means that there is no slack in capacity to replace the five percent lost. The putative three percent that would seem available isn’t available because there will always be three percent or so of capacity taken out for routine maintenance and repairs.

So yes, gasoline, petroleum products and natural gas are going up, probably way up.

… in only one way:

Just ask Marine sergeant Marco Martinez, a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom and a full-time psychology major at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif.

“A woman on campus had apparently learned I might be a Marine. When I told her I was, she said, ‘You’re a disgusting human being, and I hope you rot in hell!’ ”

Indeed, Martinez, who will be the first male in his family to receive a college diploma, says he is receiving more of an education than he bargained for: “There are a lot of people who don’t appreciate military service in college,” Martinez said. “If someone asks me about it, and I think that they’re not too liberal, I might tell them I was in Iraq. But I don’t tell them the full extent of it or anything about the Navy Cross.”

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Now that the brunt of the hurricane has moved away, the assessments of flooding and damage done in New Orleans and surrounding areas are underway. Some grabs are below of New Orleans neighborhoods; I don’t know which ones.

Shepherd Smith reported live at approximately 2:25 p.m. CDT today that New Orleans’ fabled French Quarter escaped catastrophe, though buildings there did suffer some damage. Some grabs:

My wife and I spent our honeymoon in the French Quarter in 1980. We haven’t been back since then, though we have wanted to revisit. Maybe now that the FQ is still there, we’ll go. After all, New Orleans has been threatened by a hard hurricane three years in a row now. We’re happy their luck has held thus far, but one day the Big One will hit.

As I mentioned to my church yesterday, though, for New Orleans to dodge the big bullet means that it strikes someone else. I doubt that the people of coastal Alabama are rejoicing that they took the major blow rather than New Orleans.

Although the FQ escaped major damage (as reported so far), reports from the rest of the city are not so good. There are reports of some sections of the city under several feet of water and major structural damage to buildings.

Former US Senator John Brieux of La. said in an interview today that President Bush should seriously consider releasing oil from the nation’s strategic reserve to compensate for the loss of supply because of Hurricane Katrina.

“The strategic reserve is intended to be used in emergencies,” said Brieux, “and this is certainly an emergency.” He pointed out that President Bush already declared federal emergency status for the affected regions yesterday.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve is,

… the largest stockpile of government-owned emergency crude oil in the world. Established in the aftermath of the 1973-74 oil embargo, the SPR provides the President with a powerful response option should a disruption in commercial oil supplies threaten the U.S. economy. It also allows the United States to meet part of its International Energy Agency obligation to maintain emergency oil stocks, and it provides a national defense fuel reserve.

Today’s events seem to meet the bill. According to the Energy Dept., “The SPR is now at its highest level” of inventory, with a total storage capacity of 727 million barrels. The SPR is not full, however; the SPR was expected to reach its goal of 700 million barrels this month.

Question: How fast can oil be released from the Reserve?

Answer: Should the President order an emergency sale of Strategic Reserve oil, DOE can conduct a competition, select offers, award contracts, and be prepared to begin deliveries of oil into the marketplace within 13 days. Oil can be pumped from the Reserve at a maximum rate of 4.4 million barrels per day for up to 90 days, then the drawdown rate begins to decline as storage caverns are emptied. At 1 million barrels per day, the Reserve can release oil into the market continuously for nearly a year and a half.

USA Today reports,

The Bush administration said Monday that it would consider loaning crude oil from the government’s emergency stockpile, if requested by U.S. refiners facing delayed shipments due to Hurricane Katrina.
“Certainly that option is on the table and it is a possibility based on what we have done in the past with other hurricanes,” an Energy Department spokesman said.

However, the Energy Department has not yet received a formal request for loans from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), a crucial administrative step that starts the decision-making process, the spokesman said. …

The government loaned, or “exchanged,” some 5.4 million barrels of crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve last year following supply disruptions caused by Hurricane Ivan.

It’s too early to tell the scope of the disruption of supply Katrina will have caused. There was a reduction in pumping production of 600,000 barrels per day from offshore platforms as operating companies shut them down to evacuate crews. As well, Port Fourchon is reported underwater; it’s the major petroleum port in the United States. I think there will be some sales from the SPR and the announcement to that effect will be made within a couple of days.

Update: A lot of the nation’s refining capacity is in Louisiana, too. If there is significant damage to refineries there would be little point in releasing crude oil from the SPR if it can’t be refined.

So says Sgt. Joe Roche.

Before September 11, a lot of soldiers were happy to just enjoy the benefits. Since that day, those soldiers have left. That is fine and not the disaster that defeatist reports are making it seem. Such soldiers were never the types to want to go on long deployments and face combat. Yes, they were heroes for signing up and being in a job that could go that direction, but they had other priorities that made their service contingent on enjoying the benefits rather than serving in war.

That changed on September 11. Now, just as we are told to expect when joining, we are going to combat and many soldiers are getting injured and killed. This is our job, and it is what we know can happen. I don’t know why the media insists on trumpeting the idea that all of us are tired and worn out and just want to stop fighting. I don’t, and I am not alone.

So why hasn’t the Army changed its recruiting pitch? I wonder whether a lot of men and women join the Army these days in spite of its recruiting pitch rather than because of it.

Lots more in Joe’s essay. Read the whole thing.

As if the flooding itself from Katrina won’t be bad enough, the waters will probably be deadly poisonous:

Estimates have been made of tens of thousands of deaths from flooding that could overrun the levees and turn New Orleans into a 30-foot-deep toxic lake filled with chemicals and petroleum from refineries, and waste from ruined septic systems.

Earlier today the FoxNews anchor read an email from a meteorologist who had weathered three hurricanes in New Orleans, including Camille in 1969. The man said that people staying behind need to understand that there are thousands of poisonous snakes that will flee to the same high ground as people. He said that after the hurricanes he saw numerous bodies of people killed by snakebite. In the contest for safe terrain, he said, “the snakes always win.”

You think gas prices are high now? They are, but wait until Louisiana’s oil industry is devastated by Katrina, as presently seems nearly certain.

Oil-platform production in the Gulf of Mexico has been basically shut down already, and 12 platforms have been evacuated.

New Orleans ands other nearby ports are major petroleum transshipment points; one news report I heard this afternoon said that 25 percent of the country’s petroleum passes through the New Orleans area. Louisiana is itself one of the most important oil-producing states,

Petroleum infrastructure is extensive with a large network of crude oil, product, and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) pipelines and storage facilities. Louisiana is also home to two of the four Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) storage facilities: West Hackberry in Cameron Parish and Bayou Choctaw in Iberville Parish, Louisiana. Other infrastructure include 17 petroleum refineries with a combined crude oil distillation capacity of nearly 2.8 million barrels per calendar day, the second highest in the nation after Texas.

The capacity of Lousisiana’s Gulf oil ports is critical for the rest of the country.

Situated right on the Gulf Coast, Port Fourchon is exposed to the worst that hurricanes and tropical storms can muster. Continued wetlands loss in the area will only increase the potential for damage.

Less than 20 miles southeast of Port Fourchon is the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), built by a group of major oil and pipeline companies. It serves as the central unloading and distribution port for all incoming supertankers to the Gulf region. The supertankers offload crude oil into LOOP’s offshore pipeline continuously. The oil is then piped north to Lafourche Parish where it is stored and piped to markets all over the country.

But not only oil flows through Louisiana.

Louisiana was the leading state in total waterborne commerce with almost 516 million tons shipped and received. Of this amount, almost 108 million tons were exported. Grain (mostly corn, soybeans and wheat) was about 84 million tons of the exports. Almost all of the grain originated in the Upper Mississippi basin, moved by shallow draft barge to Louisiana docks which eventually loaded the grain to ships. Domestic shipments to other states totaled over 111 million tons with gasoline, fuel oils and other petroleum products making up more than a third.

It’s impossible accurately to predict right now what effect the hurricane will have on the rest of the country’s economy, but there seems little doubt that pump prices will jump quickly.

More information here, especially about the importance and vulnerability of Port Fourchon.

(Listed on the Beltway Sunday Drive.) See also my post on the potential damage to New Orleans.

Update: A talking head expert on TV just said pump prices will rise 20 cents per gallon by Labor Day.

Whatever else you might do today, do not fail to read this long and brilliant essay by Christopher Hitchens, “A War to Be Proud Of.”

But puerility in adults is quite another thing, and considerably less charming. “You said there were WMDs in Iraq and that Saddam had friends in al Qaeda. . . . Blah, blah, pants on fire.” I have had many opportunities to tire of this mantra. It takes ten seconds to intone the said mantra. It would take me, on my most eloquent C-SPAN day, at the very least five minutes to say that Abdul Rahman Yasin, who mixed the chemicals for the World Trade Center attack in 1993, subsequently sought and found refuge in Baghdad; that Dr. Mahdi Obeidi, Saddam’s senior physicist, was able to lead American soldiers to nuclear centrifuge parts and a blueprint for a complete centrifuge (the crown jewel of nuclear physics) buried on the orders of Qusay Hussein; that Saddam’s agents were in Damascus as late as February 2003, negotiating to purchase missiles off the shelf from North Korea; or that Rolf Ekeus, the great Swedish socialist who founded the inspection process in Iraq after 1991, has told me for the record that he was offered a $2 million bribe in a face-to-face meeting with Tariq Aziz. And these eye-catching examples would by no means exhaust my repertoire, or empty my quiver. Yes, it must be admitted that Bush and Blair made a hash of a good case, largely because they preferred to scare people rather than enlighten them or reason with them. Still, the only real strategy of deception has come from those who believe, or pretend, that Saddam Hussein was no problem.

As for the decision to invade Iraq:

At once, one sees that all the alternatives would have been infinitely worse, and would most likely have led to an implosion-as well as opportunistic invasions from Iran and Turkey and Saudi Arabia, on behalf of their respective interests or confessional clienteles. This would in turn have necessitated a more costly and bloody intervention by some kind of coalition, much too late and on even worse terms and conditions. This is the lesson of Bosnia and Rwanda yesterday, and of Darfur today. When I have made this point in public, I have never had anyone offer an answer to it. A broken Iraq was in our future no matter what, and was a responsibility (somewhat conditioned by our past blunders) that no decent person could shirk. The only unthinkable policy was one of abstention.

Read the whole thing. Twice.

The nature of Fallujah today?

It is likely that my son will wind up in or near Fallujah when he and his Marine unit deploy to Iraq very shortly. So what Michael Fumento reports is good news.

The following is from an e-mail by Navy Lt. Cameron Chen, head of the Explosive Ordnance Disposal unit of the 8th Engineer Support Battalion at Camp Fallujah, with which I had a short embed. You’ll see Chen doesn’t wear a mini-skirt and shake pom-poms but he’s certainly optimistic.

“The city is slowly rebuilding and returning to life. Some report that it’s now the safest city in the Sunni Triangle due to the heavy presence of Iraqi police and army. Every major intersection now has unarmed Iraqi police directing traffic in crisp short-sleeve button down shirts, white gloves, black flack vests, and dark blue pants. More frequently we’re responding to IEDs [improvised explosive devices] reported by local children, police and informants.

“The 10pm-5am curfew is still in effect. But people can be seen on the streets up until the last minutes before 10. The streets remain unlit at night although there are green neon lights around the minarets of the major mosques. Lines at the gas stations can be over a hundred cars long. Ironic since we are in the heart of oil country.”

A reason for this, which the media rarely report, is that the Iraqi government subsidizes gasoline so that it’s virtually free. Sell tickets to a pro football games for five cents apiece and see what kind of line you get. The subsidies also encourage smugglers, who can buy dirt cheap and sell exorbitantly high. Chen continues:

“On the main strip, restaurants and electronics shops are open for business. I have seen some sit down diner-type restaurants and others where people line up for food at teller-like windows. There is still a great deal of trash on the streets by Western standards but noticeably less than when we first arrived. Many people are moving back into the city and buildings are in various stages of repair. There are more vehicles on the streets; many are BMW’s and Mercedes.”

Fumento concludes,

No, Fallujah doesn’t rival Jamaica as a vacation resort. But last year at this time it was the epicenter of Iraq terrorism, filled with decapitators and bomb-makers. If progress can be made there, it can be made anywhere in Iraq. Don’t listen to the “quagmire” crowd. This war is being won.

Not all is sweetness and light, but as the Beatles sang, “Its getting better all the time,” around Fallujah, anyway.

Some links about the Iraq constitution:

Iraqi Constitution: Better than Feared? by James Joyner.

These I found at RealClearPolitics, which is surely on everyone’s daily read, anyway:

Iraq, Still Divided After Three Deadlines - The Economist

A United Iraq — What’s the Point? - John Yoo, Los Angeles Times

Something Important Has Happened in Iraq - David Brooks, New York Times

Myself, I tend to hew to John Yoo’s way of thinking, that a nation of Iraq as presently conceived, unified under a central (even if federalized) government is neither necessary for American security, and maybe not even desirable for it. I know there are no few problems with this idea, not least is that the oil fields are mostly found in parts of the country outside the Sunni areas. And as James Dunnigan notes (keep reading), “share and share alike” is not much on the Kurds’ and Shias’ agendas. These are, however, questions for the Iraqi people to decide.

As my friend and hopefully repeat essayist, Maj. David High, USMCR, has pointed out, the present war in Iraq is about Western imperialism as well as terrorism, it’s just that the imperialism is question is that of the 19th century, not the 21st.

David also offered an interesting and enlightening observation about the Iraqi constitutional issue, based on his tour there that ended earlier this year. The Sunnis in Iraq, he said, believe they are numerically the majority Muslims in Iraq. Even well connected and well educated Sunnis are generally skeptical at best, if not downright scornful, of the notion that Sunnis comprise only 20 percent or so of the Iraqi population. This can’t fail to affect the way Sunnis view the constitutional process, even if it makes their view seriously skewed.

But the Sunnis don’t have a lot of bargaining power no matter what they think of the position. James Dunnigan:

After decades of getting the majority of the oil revenues (for twenty percent of the population), the Sunni Arabs are being forced to accept a formula that will leave them with less than twenty percent of the oil income. This is because the Kurds and Shia Arabs, in whose territory the oil fields are, demand an extra cut of the oil revenue, in addition to that due them on a per-capita basis. This is considered compensation for the ecological burden of hosting the oil facilities, and compensation for the past (when the Sunni Arabs took all the revenue.) Not all Sunni Arabs are willing to accept this deal, but it’s pitched as an “offer you can’t refuse.” Should the Sunni Arabs refuse to cooperate, the implicit threat is war without mercy. The hatred of the Sunni Arabs, by the Kurds and Shia Arabs, is intense. Over three decades of Sunni Arab domination and persecution has left its mark, and there is not a lot of patience for continued Sunni Arab violence. The Sunni Arabs have escaped some of the responsibility by pointing out that the worst terrorist attacks are by al Qaeda. But al Qaeda is basically an extremist Sunni Arab religious organization. True, most Sunni Arabs don’t agree with al Qaedas goals of global domination by Islam. Most Sunni Arabs are not willing to abide by al Qaedas strict lifestyle demands.

No one will say it out loud, but the implied threat is that, either the Sunni Arabs turn against al Qaeda and the anti-government terrorists, or have the Kurds and Shia Arabs (80 percent of the population) go to war with the entire Sunni Arab community. …

Many Kurds and Shia Arabs are not waiting. The number of Sunni Arabs killed by death squads is increasing. The Kurds and Shia Arabs have thousands of names of Sunni Arabs with blood on their hands. The killers see themselves as avengers. But they may be the vanguard of a much larger wave of murder and destruction. Wouldn’t be the first time there was a major ethnic cleansing in the region, but the United States does not want it to happen with over 100,000 American troops as witnesses.

Indeed not. Miles to go before we sleep, I’m afraid, and the Iraqi people, too.

I linked yesterday to milblogger Andi’s documentation of antiwar protesters at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, protests that just thios week have drawn national media attention.

Now protests are coming to the funerals of two Tennessee Army National Guard soldier killed in Iraq.

Members of a virulently anti-gay Kansas church plan to demonstrate outside two Midstate National Guard funerals tomorrow, an action that has the military community incensed.

The two guardsmen killed last week in Iraq from the 278th Regimental Combat Team were Sgt. Gary L. Reese Jr. of Ashland City and Staff Sgt. Asbury F. Hawn Jr. of Lebanon.

Members of Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kan. — which has the Web site godhatesfags.com — plan to picket outside the services.

As the article points out, this “church” is really a family project by founder Fred Phelps, “whose followers say America has been co-opted by gays, and God’s wrath is therefore rightfully killing soldiers.” I’d excerpt more, but my stomach won’t take it.

In a radio interview this morning on WWTN, Staff Sgt. Hawn’s sister (I didn’t get her name) said that she has confirmed that the Phelps organization has been issued a permit. But she said that the permit is for only 45 minutes and the permitted protest site is a mile and half from the church where the funeral service for her brother will be held today. She and her family have retained off-duty police officers to ensure no trespassing on the church or cemetery grounds take place; both are private property.

If the “Code Pink” protesters at Walter Reed are rightfully excoriated for their offensiveness at shoving their protests in the faces of wounded service members, then how much more contempt must be heaped upon the Phelps family for demonstrating their hate messages near the funeral of a soldier who died defending his country? I am at a loss for words to describe their moral emptiness.

I have previously questioned whether Phelps should actually be accepted as a member of the Christian faith. I have no authority other than my opinion to say so, but let me be clear that I do not count him and his so-called (cough, tax dodge, cough) “church” inside the communion of Christianity. Only God can make such an ultimate determination, of course, but as for me, I do not recognize them as fellow Christians. This is a statement I have made about no one else who claims the title of Christian.

On the same radio show just now a Southern Baptist minister has just called in and said the same thing.

Comments on.

Paul Stares is vice president for research and studies at the U.S. Institute of Peace. Mona Yacoubian is a special adviser to the institute’s Muslim World Initiative. Their piece in yesterday’s WaPo proposed that Islamist terrorism be conceived of thus:

Standard counterterrorism responses, such as improving intelligence sharing and law enforcement cooperation, are indispensable but insufficient. Likewise, military force is sometimes required, but it cannot be the primary response. So what to do?

One promising new approach builds on the parallels often drawn between terrorism and a mutating virus or metastasizing cancer. Although Islamist militancy is clearly not a disease in the clinical sense, it does exhibit qualities of a social contagion; there is something undeniably appealing or “infectious” to many about the ideas and beliefs that motivate terrorists and their many supporters. Analyzing the terrorist threat with an epidemiological framework would give focus and direction to our effort in three areas:

First, it would encourage us to ask the right questions. What is the nature of the infectious agent, in this case the ideology? Which transmission vectors — for example, mosques, madrassas, prisons, the Internet, satellite TV — spread the ideology most effectively? Who seems to be most vulnerable to its appeal? Why are most Muslims immune? Nearly four years after Sept. 11, we still have only rudimentary answers.

There is a lot to commend about this idea. In fact, I proposed the same thing in October 2001.

We need to understand how the terrorists operate and sustain themselves. Al Qaeda is not like any enemy we have ever faced and therefore our national responses will be unlike any we have ever given. While Al Qaeda is obviously capable of great violence, it may be likened to a virus that has already infected the world’s systems of commerce, travel, finances, politics and communications. Our countermeasures must be specific to those environments. We should consider that we are healing the world of terrorism rather than simply destroying terrorism, lest our actions perversely sustain the environment in which viral terrorism reproduces and flourishes.

This means that while current members of terrorist networks must be brought to justice — or justice brought to them, as President Bush put it — we need to find ways to make Al Qaeda’s recruitment of replacements unsuccessful. But this will be a very long process.

However, the idea of terrorism as a virus wasn’t original with me, either. I first read it in an essay by John Paul Lederach, a pacifist who is a Mennonite professor at Eastern Mennonite University. Shortly after the attacks of 9/11/01, he wrote, “The Challenge of Terror.”

We need a new metaphor, and though I generally do not like medical metaphors to describe conflict, the image of a virus comes to mind because of its ability to enter unperceived, flow with a system, and harm it from within. This is the genius of people like Osama Ben Laden. He understood the power of a free and open system, and has used it to his benefit. The enemy is not located in a territory. It has entered our system. And you do not fight this kind of enemy by shooting at it. You respond by strengthening the capacity of the system to prevent the virus and strengthen its immunity. It is an ironic fact that our greatest threat is not in Afghanistan, but in our own backyard.

There was and still is much to commend in Lederach’s essay, but he missed the boat in some places as well. However, a lot of us did, and I still admire Lederach’s insights and life’s work.

Back to the two WaPo authors. They say that thinking of Islamist terrorism as a virus offers these advantages:

First, it would encourage us to ask the right questions. What is the nature of the infectious agent, in this case the ideology? Which transmission vectors — for example, mosques, madrassas, prisons, the Internet, satellite TV — spread the ideology most effectively? Who seems to be most vulnerable to its appeal? Why are most Muslims immune? Nearly four years after Sept. 11, we still have only rudimentary answers.

Second, an epidemiological approach would help us view Islamist militancy as a dynamic, multifaceted phenomenon. Just as diseases do not emerge in a vacuum but evolve as a result of complex interactions between pathogens, people and their environment, so it is with Islamist militancy. Too often, however, we focus on the individual parts of the problem and miss the evolving big picture.

Third, it would encourage us to devise a comprehensive, long-term strategic approach to countering the threat. Public health officials long ago recognized that epidemics can be rolled back only with a systematically planned, multi-pronged international effort. The same applies to Islamist militancy; no silver bullet exists and no country can meet the challenge alone.

A global counterterrorism campaign inspired by classic counter-epidemic measures would simultaneously seek to contain the spread of Islamist militancy, protect those who are most susceptible and remedy the key environmental factors that foster it.

Much food for thought, although there remain many holes to be filled in.

Comments on.

Update added at end.

Jeb Babbin:

Wartime presidents must lead their people. In this, Mr. Bush has fallen flat. It’s not enough to say we must complete the mission. It’s not nearly enough to repeat the truism that our soldiers are performing bravely, with skill and humaneness not seen before in history. As important as those facts are, they pale in comparison to what we aren’t told: What is the mission? Who are our enemies, and where are they? How are we going to attack and defeat them? What, specifically, are they trying to do and how are we going to stop them? We know none of those things from the President. To say what he says again and again — without saying much else — leaves wartime opinion-making to Vladimir Putin, Russell Feingold, Chuck Hagel and Cindy Sheehan.

Military theorist Marshal de Saxe observed in 1730, “The courage of the soldiers must be reborn daily. There is nothing that is so variable.” In the same way, a wartime president in a democracy must always remind the people why they fight and expend their blood and treasure. The will and determination of the people to persevere is highly variable.

Every business executive knows that consumers must always be reminded of the business’s products or services. There is nothing so variable as a customer base. So businesses advertise repetitively; one key to successful advertising is repeating the message over and over. Commercial ads are openly propagandistic, of course, and no government information agency should engage in propaganda. It’s true that in World War II the US government engaged in domestic propaganda but today is a different era. Unlike then, the government today cannot manage information on a macro scale. There are too many observers, too many writers, too many information channels and too many cameras. If the government tries to mislead or cover up its success will be only temporary. The truth will always out and do so much faster than ever before.

Yet a scandal can race around the world while good news and succcess stories are still tying their shoes. The Bush administration has allowed the information status quo of the war to be maintained too long in the public eye. The information agenda has been set by the mainstream media (MSM), attenuated to a significant but not large degree by bloggers. I think the administration should begin immediately a vigorous domestic-information program to do these things:

— remind the American people “why we fight.”


— inform the public of successes achieved.

— educate the public of the national objectives being sought, and how.

I have no grand plan on exactly how such a program should be carried out, but its success would depend on sidestepping the mainstream media. None of this information has been unavailable in the public arena. The MSM could have been reporting such stories objectively all along but have deliberately avoided doing so.

Yet such blame cannot be carried too far because the media aren’t responsible for carrying out anyone’s information strategy. My complaint is that the government has no domestic-information strategy to begin with. I am not recommending the reestablishment of the Office of War Information which the Roosevelt administration used so suspectly that Congress curtailed its operations mid-war and finally shut it down altogether. I do think an integrated, comprehensive information program is long past time to be emplaced.

Mr. Babbin is right when he says, “The President needs to explain to us, in detail, what defeat would mean to us and the rest of the civilized world. He needs to tell us where we are fighting, and how.” But the task is too great for the president and his handful of spokepersons to do alone. An integrated, interdepartmental, permanent program should be established to do this. Simple briefings at Defense, State and DHS aren’t doing the trick.

As a thought experiment, I’d propose that a joint information office be established with the responsibility to integrate information from executive departments for distribution to the public. The “JIO” would have no authority to censor anything, nor would it have the authority to direct departments what to release to itself or the public. It would have the authority and budget to reuse information through multiple media in order to carry out the tasks above.

What media, you ask? Just some ideas:

Ad buys in print and broadcast media. Direct mailing. Internet. “Trailers” in movie theaters shown before the feature film. Radio spots. Public seminars. Certainly there are downsides, but the status quo must not continue.

“In wartime,” said Dwight D. Eisenhower, “public opinion is everything.” Like the courage of soldiers that must be reborn daily, the determination of the people be routinely nourished as well. If our cause is just, justly waged for a just end, then we should have no fear of doing so.

Comments on.

Update: John Burgess, whose work and resume I respect, says in a comment,

This [proposal] is currently prohibited by the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948. The act, created in the aftermath of WWII and the recognition of the perniciousness of the Goebbels’ domestic propaganda machine, led Congress to specifically prohibit the domestic dissemination of “propaganda” by the government.

I must disagree. The act to which John refers is officially titled the “United States Information and Educational Exchange Act of 1948″. Its full text is here. The act did not found the VOA but it did define its role and functions to what they are today, with a few amendments that have been enacted in the intervening years.

The act is very specifically written to govern the role of the US State Department in disseminating information about the United States to foreign audiences:

The Congress hereby declares that the objectives of this Act are to enable the Government of the United States to promote a better understanding of the United States in other countries, and to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries. Among the means to be used in achieving these objectives are

(1) an information service to disseminate abroad information about the United States, its people and policies promulgated by the Congress, the President, the Secretary of State and other responsible officials of Government having to do with matters affecting foreign affairs;

(2) an educational exchange service… .

Far from prohibiting the release of such information to the American public, the act actually specifically requires it in Section 501:

Any such press release or radio script, on request, shall be available in the English language at the Department of State at all reasonable times following its release as information abroad, for examination by representatives of United States press associations, newspapers, magazines, radio systems, and stations [italics added], and, on request, shall be made available to Members of Congress.

To make the information available to the American media is the same as releasing it to the general public. Furthermore, my proposal specifically stated that the JIO would use information already being produced by the various executive departments and already being released by them. As well, the Smith-Mundt Act is concerned exclusively with State Dept. information programs for foreign audiences, while my proposal is concerned with an information program for a domestic audience, not produced by State or any other existing executive department.

I also recognize that the president can’t simply create a JIO out of thin air. Congress would have to authorize it in any event, even if only to allocate funding. What Congress can legislate in it can legislate out; the Congress is not bound by its own precedents or preceding legislation. That a JIO would come under appropriate Congressional oversight would only be right and proper, just as every other executive department and agency does.