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Friday 18th September, 2009

Read the full unabridged version of General David H. Petraeus's keynote speech

General David H. Petraeus

 

Well good evening to you all and thanks for that kind introduction, Dean, and I do want to ask, you know I think I know what all those decorations stand for – can I get that case of Champagne?

But I must say that the queen’s English somehow makes a generous remark sound a bit grander than is probably justified, but I appreciate it just the same.

Beyond that though, given the city we’re in, I do want to establish a small point of order before I begin this evening. We may actually I think have a few Members of Parliament here tonight and I’m indeed honoured by that. I also know that we have time for questions later. Now I’ve seen what happens during Prime Minister’s Question Time … in truth the broadcast of Prime Minister’s Question Time is widely watched and much enjoyed on American public television. There’s something about it that appeals to Americans. Perhaps it’s the take no prisoners rhetoric that we former-colonials enjoy. In fact among British topics of interest in the United States, Prime Minister’s Question Time probably ranks a close third in appeal to us, given that we are of course first and foremost fascinated by any and all stories about British royalty, and second by any and all accounts of your wonderfully newsworthy and delightfully colourful London Mayor.

In any event, if these evening’s question and answer period is going to become similar to Prime Minister’s Question Time, I’d like to know that upfront so that I can just keep talking until the time for questions has expired! I seem to recall seeing that strategy employed during Prime Minister’s Question Time once or twice.

Well it is a great honour to be here as a guest of the Policy Exchange in the heart of this great city, and it’s humbling to look out at such a distinguished audience, to see all of you who have gathered this evening. Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank, and to think I knew him when he was merely Sir Charles.

We’re fascinated by this royalty stuff, but where in the world is Craigiebank? Whatever happened to El Alamein or something like that?

Well, Members of Parliament, ministers, commissioners, chief constables, fellow soldiers, especially Major General Andrew McKay who we jokingly refer to as the King of Scotland, the Commander of the Scottish Division with whom I was privileged to serve in Iraq and who commanded the Scottish Brigade with distinction in Afghanistan, the many prominent and distinguished members of the Fourth Estate and the security community in attendance tonight, it is again a special privilege to join all of you to deliver the fourth Colin Cramphorn Memorial Lecture.

And I hope you appreciate the significance of a US Army General Officer giving a speech unaided by a laser pointer and PowerPoint slides! You may in fact be witnessing an event that is relatively unprecedented in recent US Military history, but the slides are loaded for the question and answer period.

We’re here in part of course to remember Colin. It is after all the memory of his service, and of the character of that service in Northern Ireland and West Yorkshire and a number of other places, that brings us together tonight and provides an occasion for us to extend his legacy. Indeed, when I did a bit of research about Colin I must confess that I saw what seemed to me to be a kindred spirit. I was particularly taken by the reference one of his supervisors provided when Colin was considered for the position of Deputy Chief Constable of what was then the Royal Ulster Constabulary. ‘Well,’ Colin’s boss wrote, ‘if you want a deputy who will give you an easy life, who will give you peace and who will leave you alone, Colin is not your man. ‘I suspect that some of my old bosses may have provided similar assessments for me at various times as well. But tonight we’d do well to focus on an important theme that Colin used to emphasise, that while every location is different, all locations are nonetheless connected. Colin’s insight of course was to notice the link between those two realities. First, if all locations are different, local knowledge is obviously critical, but if, as he also contended, the fate of one location often depends on the destiny of another, then individual actions are important not just in their locals but to the whole as well.

This insight was really almost John Dunne-esque, if you will, akin to John Dunne’s observation that no man is an island, and the implication is significant. Our security as a whole is linked to the security of our parts, and the security of our parts depends on the whole. Again, a key insight in an increasing reality with the onset of globalisation. In fact those of us engaged in counter-insurgency operations in recent years have emphasised similar points, recognising the importance of nuanced understandings of local situations but also underscoring the importance of getting the big ideas and the big trends right as well. In essence the distance between the tactical and strategic levels of our activities have been compressed considerably with the activities at one level likely to effect the situations in the other as well. In view of the important insights by Colin, and as I mentioned earlier, the character of his work, his legacy does indeed matter, and I too want to thank his wife Lynne, Colin’s sister Vicky and Colin’s son Edward for being here to help us recall the importance of Colin’s work and to help us keep that legacy vibrant.

There has been, perhaps by design, a logical progression of topics in the successive Cramphorn lectures. In 2006 the head of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command, Peter Clark, emphasised the local components of counterterrorism with respect to policing. He concluded, as Colin had before him, that the problem with counterterrorism had simply grown too large for just the local police forces in the UK to address, and as others also recognised the validity of this observation, regional policing cells were established; but the regional cells also needed longer tentacles, so earlier this year the Director General of the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism in the Home Office, Charles Farr, extended the argument abroad, calling for true international cooperation in the fight against terrorism and highlighting the link between counter-insurgency and counterterrorism, a link that central command recognises explicitly as well, as I will explain.

In many ways, my remarks tonight naturally follow those of earlier lectures, for I will agree strongly with what those before me have proposed, that no problem can be viewed in isolation and that indeed many of the challenges that confront the United States and America’s military are connected to many of your challenges in the various organisations in the UK, and the same is true for our many other partners of course as well. What our coalition forces are doing in the Central Command of responsibility compliments the work that local and regional police forces are doing in the US, UK and other coalition force nations, not to mention in the nations of our partners in the region as well. So as I discuss the challenges that we all face in the Central Command area of responsibility, I think it’s reasonable to assert that Colin would have agreed that to the degree that extremists and hostile states are successful even in far-flung locals, the security of all our nations is made vulnerable.

With that in mind, I want to structure my remarks this evening in three parts. First I’ll provide a quick overview of the Central Command area of responsibility or AOR as the American acronym goes. Then I’ll talk about our approach in the region and describe the principles that have led us to implement, to varying degrees in different areas, a comprehensive whole of government’s counterinsurgency strategy. And lastly I’ll describe briefly the situations in several of the countries and sub-regions in our AOR.

So let me start by taking a moment to describe the Central Command AOR. The region consists of twenty countries, from Egypt in the West to Pakistan in the East, from Kazakhstan in the North to Yemen and the waters off Somalia in the South. This audience recognises well, I know, that this region sits astride the traditional land of former empires, and the pull of ancient tensions can still be felt in many areas of the region. The AOR includes some 530 million people from at least 22 major ethnic groups who speak 18 major languages and ascribe to at least four major religions and innumerable others. The area is rich in oil and natural gas, but poor in fresh water. It has countries with the highest per capita income in the world and others that rank in the lowest five. In eighteen of the twenty states, young people between the ages of 15 and 29 constitute over 40% of the population, and economic opportunities for many of them are insufficient. Needless to say, these factors combine to produce a potent brew of challenges for individual countries for the region and in a number of cases for the world.

Most concerning in this brew of challenges is the presence of militant extremism and an inclination by some groups to resolve problems by shooting rather than my merely shouting. Moreover, the desire of some states and extremist elements to obtain weapons of mass destruction amplifies the threats we confront, as do the malign activities of certain states in supporting violent proxies and the movement of extremist elements across state boarders. In some states as well the presence of immature government structures and uneven economic development puts extremists squarely in their element and undermines the traditional ties between people and their state. Above all though, it is the unique combination of all these dangers and resources in the Central Command region that makes this area so critical to the security of all developed nations. Central Command is, in fact, the smallest of the six regional US combatant commands, but it contains a disproportionate share of the world’s challenges. These challenges are typically connected to each other, and our strategy must follow from an understanding of those connections. The nature of the problems we face and the linkages among them prompt us to adopt an overall approach that embodies three general concepts. The first of these reflects our recognition that our approach must be comprehensive. Achieving US national goals and objectives and helping our partners achieve theirs as well requires more than just the traditional application of military power. Consequently we need a whole of government approach and we must work to partner with other US governmental agencies and, as I’ll note in a moment, to coordinate and engage with as many elements of partnering nations as is possible too.

The second major aspect of our approach is that it must be sustained and enduring. None of the region’s challenges have easy or simple solutions. The reality is that complex challenges require persistent effort and the implementation of nuanced comprehensive solutions. There are no quick fixes to the challenges that exist in the Centcom AOR.

The third and final strategic big idea that guides our approach is awareness that we must pursue cooperative, multilateral solutions to the challenges in the region. Undertaking multilateral activities in pursuit of common interests helps combine the diplomatic, economic and military capabilities of many nations. These efforts also support building partner capabilities where required and seek to capitalise on the comparative advantages of all participants.

In essence then, the situation in the Centcom AOR requires a comprehensive, sustained, whole of governments (plural) approach to achieve American objectives and those of our partners.

So those are the big ideas, the concepts that inform our thinking about how to deal with the challenges we face there. And based on them we’ve developed and implemented an overall regional strategy that is, in essence, a comprehensive counter insurgency strategy. We’ve done this because we recognise that countering terrorists and extremism requires more than just counter-terrorist forces. To be sure, 22 SAS, General Guthrie’s old outfit, and its US counterparts, are truly national if not international assets, absolutely extraordinary in what they can do, and we’re privileged to have such elements operating in substantial numbers in the Centcom AOR, but as we re-learned in Iraq, they cannot, by themselves, defeat an industrial-strength extremist insurgent problem. In fact, while counterterrorist operations are critically important, they are but one of the many elements of the type of comprehensive whole of governments counterinsurgency approach that is required to deal with the substantial challenges found in the Centcom AOR. A successful counterinsurgency strategy does, of course, have traditional offensive and defensive kinetic military components, including a subset that is the kind of operations associated with counterterrorist forces. Conventional military operations obviously enable you to clear areas of extremist insurgence elements and, together with special operations forces, to stop them from putting themselves back together. The core of any counterinsurgency strategy though is that it must focus on the fact that the decisive terrain is the human terrain, not the high ground or river crossing, though those features do remain of importance. Focussing on the population can, if done properly, achieve a number of important effects. First and foremost of course, it can improve the security of the population, which is all important, and thereby help local authorities extend basic services to the people. A population-centric focus can also help to delegitimize the methods of the extremists, especially if you can contrast your ability and willingness to support and protect the population with the often horrific actions of extremist groups. Indeed, exposing the extremist ideologies, indiscriminate violence and oppressive practices of extremist movements can help the people realise that their lives are unlikely to be improved if under the control of such movements.

For the strategy to work, moreover, it’s also necessary to find ways to identify reconcilable members of insurgent elements and to transform them from being part of the problem to becoming part of the solution. That is not only important from a security standpoint in the local area, it’s also important in generating the kind of momentum that can result in a spread of thinking that is time to reject resistance and embrace political participation.

The goal, of course, is to mobilise local opinion in opposition to violent ideologies, and on this point I might note that it was British deputy in Iraq, Lieutenant General Graeme Lamb, also a former 22 SAS, armed with lessons he’d learned in Northern Ireland, who was one of those who was in the development of the concepts of reconciliation that enabled us to capitalise on the so-called Anbar Awakening, and to help transform it into a broader Sunni Awakening in Iraq in 2007. I might note that Lieutenant General (retired) Sir Graeme Lamb is now in Kabul by the way, helping General Stan McChrystal develop concepts to guide the reintegration of reconcilables in Afghanistan.  

Having described the region and our general approach to the challenges in it, I’d like to walk around the AOR and discuss the situation in various of the countries and major sub-regions, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iran, the Arabian Peninsula, Egypt and the Levant and lastly Central Asia. In Iraq, security has improved dramatically over the last two years, though as always the situation does still remain fragile and reversible, certainly less so than when Ambassador Crocker and I first described the situation in such terms back in 2008. Insurgent attacks in Iraq in June 2007, for example, averaged over 160 per day. Since then we’ve seen a steady decline in violence to the point that there are now around 20 or so attacks per day, even as we have moved US forces out of the Iraqi cities and handed off security tasks to increasingly capable Iraqi security forces. There are elements still due to be sure: support and, as requested, enable Iraqi forces with a variety of assets that their forces are still developing. In the past two years, there have also been similar declines in violent civilian deaths, high profile attacks and virtually every other security metric, but though the trends in Iraq have been uniformly positive, albeit with ups and downs, many challenges remain, and violence is still a part of the present-day Iraq, as we saw so tragically in the horrific car bombings conducted three weeks ago in Bagdad. Al-Qaida Iraq and other Sunni extremist organisations are still present and periodically carry out such sensational attacks. Iranian (9:16 part 2) extremist groups are also still present, and we have seen attacks with signature Iranian provided weapons, such as explosively formed projectiles and rockets, on a daily basis. There are also, of course, continued Arab/Kurd, Sunni/Shia, Intra-Shia and Intra-Sunni challenges as well as budget pressures due to reduced oil prices, hundreds of thousands of Iraqis still displaced by the sectarian violence of past years, and still inadequate levels of basic services, though there have been records set recently in the production of electricity and in oil exports, significant increases in religious tourism, openings of major new hospitals, completion of numerous bridge and infrastructure projects, and so on.

In addition to all that, of course, there is also currently a record amount of political speed-dating ongoing as Iraqi political leaders manoeuvre in anticipation of the national elections scheduled for mid-January. Again the trajectory has been a positive one, and now the central questions for the international community are how to help the Iraqis preserve hard-won security gains and how to promote regional engagement instability even as the international security presence in Iraq decreases with, in the case of US forces, a decrease of some 130,000 forces a few weeks ago to 50,000 by the end of next August.

Afghanistan and Pakistan, they constitute a key sub-region and in many ways currently pose the most urgent problem set in the Centcom AOR. We took a fresh look across our region starting late last year and focussed in particular on those two countries. It quickly became apparent of course that the connections between them were so deep and so established that we could not treat them as two separate problems, though that is how I’ll have to describe them this evening.

In Afghanistan the security is obviously the principle concern, though there are numerous other challenges as well with governmental legitimacy being prominent among them. Clearly the security trend in Afghanistan in recent years has been a downward spiral in many areas of the country, with levels of violence at record highs in recent weeks and currently running at about 60% higher than they were last year, though some of that may be attributable to the fact that ISAF and Afghan forces have been on the offensive in Helmand and Kandahar provinces and several other locations in recent weeks. The tactical gains in those areas notwithstanding though, the Taliban and the other elements of the so-called extremist syndicate have, without question, expanded their strength and influence, particularly in places characterised by inadequate Afghan security forces and governance. Extremists flourish in such areas and they strive to create more of them.

The Taliban and its partners also benefit from reasonable freedom of movement in the border regions of Afghanistan and Pakistan, and they fund their activities with revenues from the illegal narcotics industry, criminal activities and donations from outsiders. At a time when the challenges in Afghanistan loom so large, it is important to remember why we’re there. That is, of course, to ensure that Al-Qaida and other trans-national extremist groups are not able to re-establish sanctuaries in Afghanistan like those they had during Taliban rule there prior to 9/11. To achieve that objective, General McChrystal, the Commander of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, is employing a comprehensive counterinsurgency campaign that represents the military implementation plan of NATO’s comprehensive approach and of President Obama’s Afghanistan/Pakistan strategy. The focus of ISAF’s efforts is to protect and serve the Afghan people in order to prevent Taliban rule and extremist sanctuaries from being re-established. General McChrystal, who has spent most of his post 9/11 career leading America’s most elite counterterrorist element, the Joint Special Operations command, is the first to recognise not just the extraordinary capabilities but also the limitations of counterterrorist forces in Afghanistan. And while those forces play a critical role in the plan ISAF is implementing, they are but one component of the overall approach which, by necessity, includes employment of conventional ISAF and Afghan forces to clear areas of insurgence and then to hold them, even as conventional and special operations forces also relentlessly pursue the extremist that threaten them.

In addition to our military operations in Afghanistan, we’re also undertaking many so-called non-kinetic operations. We’re supporting provincial reconstruction teams, which help empower Afghans to solve Afghan problems. We’re embarking, with our Afghan partners, on the new programme I described earlier, to reintegrate reconcilable insurgents at local levels, and we’re working to help the Afghan government get serious about combating the corruption that has undermined the legitimacy of some Afghan institutions. We’re also working hard to accelerate the development of the Afghan security forces, so that further transfer of local security responsibility can follow that which has taken place in several districts of Afghanistan, and we’re working to disrupt narcotics trafficking by promoting viable agricultural alternatives in developing the infrastructure to help Afghan farmers get their products to market, even as we also go after the illegal narcotics industry kingpins. All of these components contribute to helping break the cycle of violence, with the effect of each element reinforcing the effect of others, over time helping produce an upward spiral rather than the downward one that is present in many of the most troubled areas. As security improves, basic services can be improved, markets can expand, schools and medical clinics can open or reopen, and governing capacity can be developed. As all this takes place, further opportunities for reintegration of local reconcilables present themselves. As that takes place, intelligence inevitably improves, and as that improves security operations become more precise and effective; and because of all that, security, basic services and governance can improve further. You get the idea, I’m sure. But we need to be realistic and clear in recognising that the campaign will require a sustained, substantial commitment. Many tough tasks loom before us, including resolution of the way ahead in the wake of the recent election, which obviously has been marred by allegations of fraud. The challenges in Afghanistan clearly are significant, but the stakes are also high, and while the situation unquestionably is, as General McChrystal has observed, serious, the mission is, as he has affirmed, still doable. In truth it is, I think, accurate to observe that as in Iraq in 2007, everything in Afghanistan is hard, and it is hard all the time.

By contrast, the situation in Pakistan has, in the past five months, been reasonably heartening. Pakistan, of course, faces its own insurgency from militants and extremists operating in the country’s tribal areas in Northwest Frontier Province, but as the threat increased earlier this year, the leaders of Pakistan, its citizens and many of its clerics, converged around a view that saw the extremist threat as a threat to the very existence of the Pakistani state. That growing recognition has led the government leaders, clerics and people increasingly to unite in support of pursuing extremists in the Northwest Frontier Province and parts of the tribal areas, and the combined effect of the Pakistani military’s operations in those areas has been significant damage to the leadership of certain extremist groups, and the clearance of the Pakistani Taliban from Swat district. To be sure, the extremist groups in Pakistan are far from defeated and many extremist elements that typically direct their operations against targets outside Pakistan’s borders have get to be engaged, but the progress has been real and it has been impressive, especially as it has become obvious that the Pakistani military in Swat has been intent on holding and rebuilding, not just on clearing. The United States has sought to provide significant support to the Pakistani military in their campaign against the extremists, though the fighting has, without question, been done by the Pakistanis. Our support has taken the form of equipment, security assistance funding, information sharing, economic and humanitarian assistance, and other support to help Pakistan increase the counterinsurgency capabilities of its military and to assist with the country’s overall development, and again the results have been heartening. 

Well, having focussed on Iraq and the AfPak problem set, I’d now like to turn our attention briefly to Iran, which of course sits between those two theatres of operation. Iran, in short, constitutes the major state-based threat to stability in the Centcom AOR. In the face of UN Security Council resolutions, international sanctions and diplomatic efforts through P-5 Plus 1, Iran continues to support surrogate proxy extremist elements and to pursue activities seen by many observers as part of an effort to develop nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them. Iran also uses its Revolutionary Guards Corps Quds force to train and equip militants in direct conflict with coalition forces, a situation that represents a less than cordial response to efforts by the United States and other Western countries to have dialogue with Iran on nuclear and security issues. The impact of Iran’s malign activities and harsh rhetoric are felt in particular throughout the Arabian peninsula, where Iran is ironically the biggest recruiter for Centcom, with prospective partner elements. Indeed, we’ve seen a significant increase in outreach to us as countries weigh Iran’s provocative actions and how they might respond. It’s not coincidental, for example that we now have eight patriot missile batteries spread across countries on the western side of the Gulf, where two years ago we had far, far fewer. Nor is it purely coincidental that we have two (0:27 part 4) Cruisers in the Gulf, or a number of new partnerships in the areas of air and missile defence and shared early warning. Meanwhile, in the Arabian Peninsula, we have seen important signs of progress against Al-Qaida and extremist organisations, with the exception of Yemen that is. The progress in this arena is especially significant to the United States and Europe because of the extensive political and commercial connections we have with the Gulf states and because of the concerns we’ve had over the years about the growth of extremism on the Peninsula and its transnational nature. It is hugely significant, therefore, that Saudi Arabia has virtually eliminated Al-Qaida from its territories, though the attack on Deputy Minister of Interior Mohammed Bin-Naif was unsettling, to be sure. That notwithstanding, the kingdom has implemented an impressive and effective comprehensive counter-extremist programme. We’ve also seen the other countries on the peninsula take effective coordinated action against transnational extremists, and today’s paper contains another account of those.  

The exception, as I noted, is Yemen, where we have seen the reestablishment of an Al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula cell. The Yemeni government has however recently expressed its determination to combat AQAP in the tribal areas of South Yemen, even as it also deals with the Huti issues in North Yemen, and a number of Western and Arab countries are working to help the Yemeni government.  

There have also been mildly positive developments in Lebanon, where the outcome of the recent elections was encouraging, even if government formation still has not been completed, and where the government has taken resolute action against Al-Qaida and other extremist elements in recent years. We’re working hard there, in fact, together with a number of other countries, to support the development of the Lebanese armed forces, even as we await developments and the efforts by Ambassador Mitchell and others to generate a bit of momentum in the effort towards a comprehensive Middle East peace, an effort that obviously has important and tremendous impact on everything that we do in the region. 

The situation in Syria meanwhile remains decidedly mixed. It’s true that fewer foreign fighters now flow through Damascus into Iran, down in fact from about 120 at the height of that flow to probably less than 10 per month in recent months; but that is more due to actions by source countries and damage to the foreign fighter facilitation network inside Iraq than it is to Syrian action, though to be fair there has been some of that as well. Meanwhile, of course, Syria continues to maintain its ties to Iran and to pursue actions that undermine stability in Lebanon and the region. But it’s also responded to engagement by Western envoys and delegations including two that included Major Generals from the US Central Command. And of course there was an important meeting in Riyadh of King Abdullah and President Mubarak with President Bashar Al Assad. There clearly are opportunities in Syria but only time will tell whether Syrian leaders recognise what many think it has to come to see – that Syria’s future lies with the West and the Arab world.

An important country in all of this, of course, has been Egypt; the state in which President Obama chose to give his very significant speech and where many of us have spent time in recent months, as Egypt has worked to disrupt arms smuggling to Hamas, to support Ambassador Mitchell’s efforts in the Mid East peace process, to support regional military exercises and operations, and to perform its traditional leadership role in the Arab world.

The last sub-region of this tour around the Central Command AOR is Central Asia, or the Stans as their sometimes called. Central Asia has received relatively less Western attention than the other sub-regions. Western nations do have a strong interest in establishing long-term cooperative relationships there and in helping to sustain a solid security environment. I have offered, since taking command of Centcom, that ensuring stability in Central Asia requires replacing the outdated zero sum paradigms of the new Great Game with a broad partnership to counter extremism and the illegal narcotics industry, and that message has resonated in many of the Central Asian states. In fact, we’ve already seen quite positive developments as the newly developed Northern Distribution Network that provides supplies and logistics through the Stans into Northern Afghanistan, helped by Russia’s agreement to allow transit of lethal and non-lethal cargo through its territory, begins to go into operation in earnest. Indeed, this initiative supplements very importantly the routes through Pakistan and is one over which already some 60% or more of our fuel is now moved into Afghanistan.

Well having taken a very quick look at the situation in the Central Command AOR, it should be clear that varying levels of comprehensive whole of governments counterinsurgency approaches have produced some progress against transnational extremists in a number of states and areas, in particular the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, the Levant, Pakistan and the Central Asian states. The security situation in Afghanistan, on the other hand, has deteriorated in recent years, but even there pressure has been increased on the insurgent and extremist elements that we clearly face innumerable challenges and progress will, as I noted earlier, require a sustained substantial commitment.

Nonetheless, while progress in the Middle East may not be evident to the casual observer, if you take a long view, as I have tonight, perhaps too long I’m afraid, you do see some important indicators of progress among what are, to be sure, a number of continuing challenges as well.

Now I’ve talked a lot about connections tonight. Connections between local and transnational parts and the whole and so on, all in keeping with the thinking of Colin. And before I surrender the lectern this evening I can’t pass up the opportunity to mention one particularly special connection to this audience, and that is the deep and abiding relationship between those who wear my country’s uniform and those who serve in Her Majesty’s armed forces. We feel very privileged to serve alongside, and in some cases shoulder to shoulder with, your soldiers, sailors, airmen and Royal Marines, as well as with your civilians. The qualities they exhibit, their initiative, innovativeness and sheer competence, not to mention their moral as well as physical courage, these qualities should be a source of great pride to all of you.

Just the other day I took the daily Centcom briefing by video teleconferences, we were on the road, and as always a couple of the British members of our staff were front and centre in the frame. Indeed, we’re delighted to have them there in our headquarters, just as we’re delighted to have so many of them on our staff in Bagdad, not to mention in multinational divisions Southeast and Basra. They bring, as I noted, many great qualities to the tasks at hand, including wonderful British understatement and a dry sense of humour. During that staff update for example, when I observed that a particular country may at one time have been part of the British Empire, your Air Vice-Marshal John Stacey replied, without hesitation, ‘Well sir, most countries in the Centcom region were part of the Empire.’ 

Those reminders of history notwithstanding, we have enormous respect for our British colleagues at Centcom headquarters, as we do for all of the men and women who wear your country’s uniform. Having been privileged myself to serve alongside them almost nonstop since 2000 in Kuwait, the Balkans, Iraq and now Afghanistan and elsewhere throughout the Centcom AOR, I can assure you that your pride in them is well founded.

As I close, I should note that for an American military officer, particularly for one who’s an amateur military historian, visiting London is always a bit of pilgrimage. Many US military traditions have some British precursor, and that shared heritage forms part of the special relationship that we have long celebrated. Last year I had the good fortune to recall an important moment in that relationship when I visited the World War II Cabinet War Rooms with the great General Sir Mike Jackson. During our tour Jacko and I were graciously permitted access to the personal map and planning rooms used by Prime Minister Churchill, and as we read some of Churchill’s hand-written notes, we were transported back to that earlier era of extraordinary US-UK cooperation, and we were once again impressed by the extraordinary accomplishments of your country. It was another one of those times in fact when I’ve been tempted to agree with Cecil Rhodes’ wonderful observation that being an Englishman is the greatest prize in the lottery of life.

Well if Cecil Rhodes is correct, and I’m inclined to think that he is, then the second greatest prize in the lottery of life must be to be a friend of an Englishman. And based on that, the more than 230,000 men and women in uniform in the Central Command Area of Responsibility who work with your country’s finest on a daily basis are very lucky indeed, as am I.  

Thank you very much.