The Bernard L. Schwartz Fellows Program: Policy Papers

Guantanamo: Who Really 'Returned to the Battlefield'?

American Strategy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:03:00 -0400

As President Obama receives formal recommendations in the coming months on issues surrounding the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, it is crucial that policymakers and the public have an accurate picture of the threat to the United States posed by those detainees already released. Contrary to recent assertions that one in seven, or 14 percent, of the former prisoners had "returned to the battlefield," our analysis of Pentagon reports, news stories, and other public records indicates that the number who were confirmed or suspected to be involved in anti-U.S.

To Save America's Finances, Bring Back Community Banking

adminn — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:34:00 -0500

In the fall of 2007, Countrywide Financial, then the nation's largest mortgage lender, had a curious new idea -- or, more precisely, an old one. It would no longer import foreign capital through Wall Street to make subprime loans. Instead, it would depend entirely on deposits from savers, who would finance each other's mortgages -- kind of like that humble thrift institution run by George Bailey in the movie It's a Wonderful Life."

How Not to Lose Afghanistan (and Pakistan)

American Strategy — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 04:24:00 -0400

In late May, some 40 Pakistani journalists received a summons to an unusual press conference held by Baitullah Mehsud, the rarely photographed leader of the Pakistani Taliban, who is accused of orchestrating the 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, sending suicide bombers to Spain earlier this year, and dispatching an army of fighters into Afghanistan to attack U.S. and NATO forces in recent months. Surrounded by a posse of heavily armed Taliban guards, Mehsud boasted that he had hundreds of trained suicide bombers ready for martyrdom.

It was an extraordinarily brazen public performance for a man who is supposedly in hiding.[1] The press conference was held in a school in South Waziristan, on Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan. And it wasn't secret: according to two of the journalists who attended, reporters were given 24 hours' notice of the event and were able to call in news from the meeting on their satellite phones.

Soon after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders were on the run. Now they are running free. Neighboring Pakistan seems unable or unwilling to clamp down on leading militants on its territory, and jihadist attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan have occurred with alarming frequency in the past year. More Pakistani citizens died as a result of militant violence in 2007 than in the previous five years combined. Similarly, in Afghanistan's eastern provinces, attacks are up by 40 percent in the last several months, and more American soldiers are now dying in Afghanistan than in Iraq. According to U.S. intelligence reports, Al Qaeda has regrouped along the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.

The deteriorating situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan has grabbed the attention of American politicians across the political spectrum. Both presidential candidates have recently called for a significant increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. But simply throwing more soldiers at the problem won't help unless the next occupant of the White House abandons our current stopgap approach with respect to Afghanistan and Pakistan and initiates a "strategic reset" of the sort that helped the U.S. military dampen the violence in Iraq.

This strategic reset has two major components. First, recognizing the peril that would ensue from Afghanistan's descent once more into a failed state, the United States must overhaul its approach to the insurgency there by building up the size of the Afghan army and police, and embedding the best American advisers in their ranks. It must fix the problems in the NATO mission, decouple the Taliban from the drug trade, embark on effective reconstruction, end coalition air strikes that kill civilians, and block the Taliban's freedom of movement throughout much of the country.

Controlling the Taliban is tied directly to the second component of a strategic reset: a new approach toward Pakistan. As much as Pakistan suffers at the hands of Islamist insurgents, the country's powerful military intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), has tolerated the Taliban, which it views as a backup force for asserting control of Afghanistan if the United States suddenly decides to cut and run. Therefore, in order to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, the United States must start dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan as one region, not as separate entities.

Afghanistan: A Model Victory or Model Disaster?

For American interventionists, Afghanistan was supposed to be the model: a quick war and a thorough renovation of the country's infrastructure and political system. Instead, Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a bigger mess than Iraq. Yet it commands a comparative fraction of the budget and attention paid to the latter. Unless that changes, the model victory will turn into a model disaster.

We should be clear about what would constitute a realistic victory in Afghanistan. Even our most concerted efforts will not turn it into Belgium, but we can prevent it from becoming a safe haven for Al Qaeda, stop the Taliban from threatening the population, bring security to much of the countryside (particularly the key roads), and wean farmers away from the poppy trade by expanding the legitimate economy. The achievement of these goals would set the country back on the road to relative peace and prosperity, where it was headed in the 1970s before the Soviet invasion.

By 2002, the Taliban had been routed from control of Afghanistan and were little more than a nuisance; today, they are much more than that. They are now supported by a growing cast of foreign fighters, including Arabs, Uzbeks, Punjabi Pakistanis, and even Europeans, according to Gen. David McKiernan, the commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan.[2]They have been encircling Kabul and ambushing convoys of supplies on their way to the capital with an eye to isolating the government. They have appeared in force in the neighboring Wardak province. In August, the Taliban killed 10 French soldiers in Sarobi, only 30 miles from Kabul. Such operations are beginning to convince the population that international forces are losing control of the country.

As Adm. Michael Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently observed-in a masterful piece of understatement-Afghanistan has been an "economy of force" operation since the fall of the Taliban.[3] You get what you pay for, which in this instance means that while American and NATO forces have been successful in initially clearing the Taliban out of many areas of the country, they haven't been able to hold and rebuild many of those cleared areas, which is critical to the success of any counterinsurgency effort. One Western diplomat in Kabul described NATO operations in the south of the country as "mowing the lawn." Every year, NATO forces go in and clear out Taliban sanctuaries, only to have to go back the following year and cut back the new growth.

With the Taliban resurgent, the enthusiastic support Afghans once showed for the U.S. invasion is now eroding. According to an ABC News/BBC poll released in December 2006, "big majorities" still thought that the U.S.-led invasion was "a good thing for their country (88 percent)." By last year that number had dropped to 76 percent. Popular support for U.S. efforts declined from 57 percent to 42 percent between 2006 and 2007. However, increasing disenchantment with the coalition forces does not equate with approval of the Taliban, who are widely loathed in much of the country, except in the southwest, where 23 percent of those polled say that they support the religious militants, compared to only 8 percent in the country as a whole.[4]

Taking the Lead

To roll back the Taliban, which must be the first step in stabilizing Afghanistan, more troops are needed. In this, both American presidential candidates are correct. But neither Senator McCain's nor Senator Obama's public statements reflect the true size of the force required. Classic counterinsurgency doctrine suggests that Afghanistan needs something like half a million additional soldiers and policemen to secure its population. There are only 70,000 policemen in the entire country, which is wracked by a violent insurgency in its eastern and southern provinces, and increasingly in its central provinces, and is also the center of the world's heroin trade. (Compare this to New York City, which alone has some 40,000 policemen.) And Afghanistan, with its high mountain ranges and a landmass a third larger than Iraq's, is a country ideally suited to guerrilla warfare. Moreover, its population is some 4 million or so greater than Iraq's, yet there are three times more soldiers and police in Iraq than in Afghanistan. Iraqi security services number around 550,000, and there are some 140,000 American soldiers stationed in the country. In contrast, Afghanistan has only 140,000 soldiers and police in total, and around 70,000 U.S. and NATO troops.

Still, Afghanistan does not need a lot more American boots on the ground. Because the U.S. military and NATO are now stretched to the breaking point, the vast majority of additional soldiers and policemen must be supplied by the Afghans. What the coalition needs to do is to send in more Special Forces and civilian advisers who specialize in the training of indigenous forces.

This raises a question that is now weighing heavily on the minds of senior U.S. military officials: Could the security shortfall in Afghanistan be reversed by replicating the "Sons of Iraq" program, which helped dampen the insurgency in Iraq by putting on the U.S. payroll 100,000 Sunni militants who subsequently helped to decimate Al Qaeda in Iraq? Yes and no. The Sons of Iraq signed up not only for a U.S. paycheck but also because Al Qaeda in Iraq had turned its guns against fellow Sunnis who did not share its ultra-fundamentalist views. However, the Taliban have not engendered anything like the intense anger among Afghans that the foreign-led militants of Al Qaeda did among the Sunnis of Iraq.

According to a senior Afghan official, President Hamid Karzai is seriously considering the idea of establishing tribal militias of 50 to 300 men to establish security at the district level and provide a counterweight to local militants. The idea is potentially a good one: ordinary Afghans tend to trust their tribal shuras (councils) to solve their problems, and these "Sons of Afghanistan" could fill the security void until the Afghan army and police grew in size and ability so as to be able to secure the country-a process likely to take many years. Such tribal militias could be paid with U.S. funds, just as the Sons of Iraq have been.

Such a plan would have to be carefully implemented in order to avoid recreating the warlord-led militias that have been so successfully disbanded since the fall of the Taliban. To avoid fostering new warlord mini-armies, the coalition should not arm the members of these tribal militias, who have retained their personal weapons. Nor should they negotiate the set-up of the militias with local strongmen, but rather seek the consent of local tribal shuras, which would oversee them.

Another promising alternative would be for the United States to provide logistical and financial support for the Afghan government to institute a draft for males older than 18. These draftees would serve for two years and help to stand up an Afghan National Guard, which in turn would help bring security and foster a sense of Afghan nationhood. When not acting as a first line of defense against the Taliban, these units could work on reconstruction projects.

Just as important as building up the Afghan army and police force is combating the insurgency by reducing its size. At the 2001 Bonn Conference that set the stage for the present Afghan government, there were no mechanisms to include the Taliban. This is no longer a viable position. Already an effective amnesty program has disarmed hundreds of Taliban soldiers; the time has now come to reach out quietly to more senior members of the Taliban who are open to negotiating a lasting peace.

In all of this, the United States must take the lead. Over the past three years, since NATO took over responsibility for military operations in the north, west, and south of the country, violence has grown exponentially. Although the Taliban's resurgence is not NATO's fault, it's time to recognize that NATO's involvement in Afghanistan has been a strategic failure.

While it is still politically and financially useful for the overall operation to be a genuine multi-country coalition, the time has come for the United States to admit that military operations, particularly in the unsettled south, must be taken over by American forces, with help from those allied Special Forces that are up to the job. Even the most able NATO allies don't have the capability of American forces, and other NATO allies come to the table so freighted with "national caveats" about what they can and cannot do that they are largely useless in battle. NATO forces should be deployed in more settled parts of the country for the peacekeeping operations that they signed up for in the first place.

Turn on the Lights in Kabul

The rising violence in Afghanistan is fed by the widespread feeling among Afghans that they haven't benefited from the billions of dollars of reconstruction aid that supposedly has been lavished on the country. Much of that money has been consumed by the various international organizations whose four-wheel drives clog the streets of Kabul. In March, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief released findings showing that some 40 percent of aid to Afghanistan has been funneled back to donor countries.

While the U.S. government has so far appropriated $45 billion for Iraqi reconstruction,[5] it has dispersed only $5 billion in aid to Afghanistan,[6] a country that has been utterly destroyed by two decades of war.

To reverse Afghan resentment, the United States should focus on completing three high-profile projects that will have real benefits for the Afghan people. The first is to turn on the lights in Kabul, which receives on average only a few hours of electricity a day. The second is to secure the important Kandahar-to-Kabul road, which was opened as a blacktop freeway with much hoopla in 2003, but which is now a suicidal route for anyone driving it without a security detail. The third is to finish building the Kajaki Dam in southern Afghanistan, which will provide electricity to some 2 million Afghans, most of whom live deep in Taliban country.

There is also the problem of the capacity of the Afghan government, which doesn't spend a good chunk of the money it is given. The only way the Afghan government can increase its capacity is if it is given the resources to attract the best and the brightest away from the NGOs operating in the country, which pay salaries the government has no way of matching. As the United States increases its direct aid to the Afghan government, it should combat corruption by requiring audits by a respected international accounting firm. And it should help fund and provide technical assistance for an Afghan governance academy that would teach best practice management to all levels of the Afghan government.

Senator Obama has said that as president he will give an additional $1 billion in reconstruction aid to Afghanistan, but significantly more than that is required to meet the country's basic needs. The new president should solicit matching funds from the Gulf nations, which are now sitting on one of the largest wealth transfers in history in the form of windfall oil profits. Those countries have so far done almost nothing to help the poorest Muslim country in the world. In the 1980s, Saudi Arabia matched U.S. expenditures in Afghanistan dollar for dollar in the effort to defeat the Soviet occupiers. It should do at least as much today to help with reconstruction, as should its neighbors. After all, as the Gulf countries are belatedly beginning to realize, they are also threatened by the rise of global militant jihadists.

Additional American aid should be tied in part to an Afghan public employment program similar to the Works Progress Administration program that President Roosevelt instituted during the Great Depression. Afghanistan has a chronic 40 percent official unemployment rate. It also has a desperate need for new roads and dams, and must repair the agricultural aqueducts destroyed by years of war. Meanwhile, Kabul and other major Afghan cities are awash in debris and trash. Cleaning up that rubbish would have a salutary effect on the residents of those cities. Much of the labor required to fix Afghanistan's problems does not require great skill, and millions of Afghans could be set to work rebuilding and cleaning up their country.

A Boneheaded Counternarcotics Strategy

Also feeding the Taliban's comeback is the boneheaded U.S. counternarcotics strategy of poppy field eradication. The policy is an utter failure: Afghanistan continues to produce ever larger amounts of opium and its derivative, heroin-providing 93 percent of the world's supply-and the Taliban insurgency is financed in good part by this trade, to the tune of $100 million a year.[7] Not only has the manual eradication program carried out by Afghan police working with DynCorp contractors failed to wipe out the Afghan drug trade, the approach has only created more enemies for the coalition.

Two million Afghan farmers and their families survive on poppy production, and those whose crops are destroyed are generally the poorer ones who can't pay the bribes to have their fields left alone. It's no surprise that those farmers are easy recruits to the Taliban cause. "The decision to destroy poppies, says Capt. Michael Erwin, a senior intelligence officer for a Special Forces task force in Afghanistan in 2007, "has turned thousands of Afghans from citizens disinterested in coalition force activity to men willing to take up arms to attack anyone they associate with eradication-coalition troops...or the Afghan government."[8]

Instead of penalizing farmers who cultivate poppies because they have few other options, the United States needs to invest in the legitimate Afghan agricultural economy by providing subsidies, price supports, and seeds for alternative crops, and by building the road system that will get those crops to market. As Lt. Gen. David Barno, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005, has said, the measure of success of a successful counternarcotics policy should not be hectares of poppy destroyed every year, but hectares of other crops that are planted. To that end, it is imperative that the United States send more agricultural advisers to Afghanistan. And the United States and other NATO countries should open their markets to Afghan farm products and handicrafts. Additionally, the international community should help Kabul set up an agency, modeled on the Canadian Wheat Board, that would purchase crops from farmers at consistent prices, and market and distribute them internationally.

The United States should also endorse a pilot demonstration project to harness poppy cultivation for the production of legal medicinal opiates such as morphine for sale to countries like Brazil that are in short supply of cheap pain drugs. While there are some legitimate criticisms of this idea-principally that it would be difficult to make sure that Afghan opium was only going into the legitimate market-one low-risk approach would be to allow the legalized opiate trade to debut as a pilot project on a small scale in a province with reasonable security. Farmers engaged in legalized poppy growing would enjoy financial incentives that could be revoked, and they would face criminal penalties if they tried to divert their product to the illicit market. Congress could amend the law that requires U.S. opiate manufacturers to purchase at least 80 percent of their opiates from India and Turkey (affording them a guaranteed market) to include Afghanistan. This preferential trade agreement, which was designed to serve U.S. political and strategic interests, should be recalibrated to fit our present-day strategic interests in Afghanistan, where vital national security interests are at stake.

To end the culture of impunity that Afghan drug kingpins currently enjoy, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration should make public the list of the country's top drug suspects, including government officials, a practice that would likely see results in Afghanistan's shame-based culture. It appears that the list has so far not been published because it would embarrass certain officials in the Karzai government. Publication is long overdue.

Because Afghanistan's judicial system is still too weak to handle major drug cases, Washington and Kabul should sign an extradition treaty allowing Afghan drug kingpins to be tried in the United States, as has happened in the past with Colombian drug lords. And now that we are finally talking to Iran, which has perhaps the highest percentage of heroin users in the world, one area of strong common interest should be closing down the trafficking routes on Afghanistan's western border.

Further Efforts

If the United States wants to stop adding fuel to the Taliban fire, it must stop killing civilians. Because Afghanistan is an economy-of-force operation, U.S. military operations rely on air strikes far more often than is the case in Iraq, with predictable consequences. In a 2007 ABC News/BBC survey, 34 percent of Afghans polled said that civilians had been killed or seriously injured by coalition forces in the area where they lived. Of the some 700 civilians killed in the first six months of 2008, around a third were killed by Afghan, American, or NATO soldiers, according to U.N. figures. That is an improvement over the same time period in 2007, when coalition forces killed more civilians than the Taliban, but the numbers must continue to come down.

Looking ahead, it is vitally important that the presidential election scheduled for the end of next year, when Hamid Karzai's five-year term as president is up, be seen to be fair and as inclusive as possible. NATO and the United States will have to pay for the costs of the election-hundreds of millions of dollars the Afghan government simply doesn't have-and focus on providing security, particularly in the south, so that the election can go forward without significant interference from the Taliban.

The Problem of Pakistan

All these efforts will fail, however, if America doesn't recognize another threat to its Afghan policy: Pakistan, which is offering crucial safe haven to the Taliban even as it professes its cooperation with the United States. A careful study by the United Nations released last September found that suicide attackers in Afghanistan are mostly drawn from religious schools across the border in Pakistan.[9] According to Seth Jones, a political scientist at RAND who has studied some 90 insurgencies that have taken place since 1945, "Insurgents have been successful approximately forty-three percent of the time when they enjoyed a sanctuary."[10]

How the Pakistan sanctuary fuels the violence in Afghanistan can be seen in the case of Rahmad Khan, a cow herder in Pakistan's tribal area, who I met in a Kabul jail in July. Khan told me he was about 30, that he couldn't read or write, and that he had been recruited three months earlier to be a "martyr" in Afghanistan in the jihad against the foreign occupiers. He said that he made about eight dollars a month herding cows-not enough to get married-and agreed to carry out a suicide mission because "in Paradise, I would find houris (virgins) for free." He was taken to a madrassa where militants were manufacturing suicide vests and then over the border to Afghanistan. But the vision of the virgins disappeared in a flash after Afghan policemen thought he seemed nervous and arrested him.

Unfortunately, there are hundreds more Rahmad Khans standing by. In 2007, there were more than 50 suicide attacks in Pakistan and some 140 in Afghanistan, many of them carried out by the Taliban. The United States must reconceptualize its Afghan policy as a regional problem. Al Qaeda and the Taliban are embedded in a sea of ethnic Pashtuns who live on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border. In fact, there are more Pashtuns in Pakistan than there are in Afghanistan-some 40 million altogether, making them the largest ethnic grouping in the world without a state.[11]

The next U.S. president should take every opportunity to make it clear that America's commitment to Afghanistan is not just until the next election cycle, but for years to come. The American public, which understands that Afghanistan's reversion into a failed state would be a prelude to Al Qaeda regaining a safe haven in the country, will support this approach. As noted above, Pakistan is holding on to its radical groups as for a means of asserting de facto control over Afghanistan should the Americans withdraw; only a long-term U.S. commitment will convince Pakistan's government to end its tolerance for the militant groups headquartered on the country's western border.

Dislike of President Bush has so colored Pakistani politics that the government has not been able to persuade its own population that going after the militants is in Pakistan's best interests and not just part of some U.S.-led war against Islam. A poll released in June by Terror Free Tomorrow, a respected Washington-based polling organization, found that 52 percent of Pakistanis blamed the United States for the violence in their country, and only 8 percent blamed Al Qaeda.[12] Just as in Afghanistan, sharply curtailing the numbers of Pakistanis killed in U.S. air strikes on the Afghan border would help reverse those numbers.

There are some promising signs that the Pakistani establishment is waking up to its domestic militant threat. As Yousaf Raza Gillani, the new prime minister, said at a press conference in July, "Pakistan is not fighting the war of any other country. The war on terror is in our own interest." But, even if the Pakistani government turns on all of its militants, there is no obvious quick way to remove their safe havens in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which for centuries have not been fully under any government's control and are now largely under the thumb of the Taliban.

The Pakistanis tried the hammer approach in the FATA in 2003 and 2004 with a number of military operations, but they were badly defeated. That approach was followed by appeasement in the form of "peace" agreements-essentially an admission of military failure-that only increased the militants' control. The most recent approach is a mix of peace agreements, military operations, and reconstruction, which on paper is not a bad idea, but even under the most optimistic scenario it will take many years to pacify the region.

The United States has earmarked $750 million in development funds for the FATA and $400 million to bolster the Frontier Corps, the local paramilitary force. This is a good start, but it may be premature: the FATA is in the grip of a violent insurgency, and even the less violent agencies, such as Khyber, are unsafe. Reconstruction in such a context may not be possible.

A further problem is that the FATA, arguably one of the most strategically important places on the planet, is an information black hole, off-limits to all but locally based journalists. The Pakistani government should be encouraged to lift its de facto ban on travel there by international journalists-as well as the similar bans in effect regarding Baluchistan and the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

To help tamp down the insurgency in FATA and other areas of the NWFP, America should help the Pakistanis build up their counterinsurgency capabilities. The Pakistani army is built for a land war with India, not for fighting terrorists and insurgents. Pakistani officers should be encouraged to attend counterinsurgency courses at American war colleges, and the United States should support such courses at Pakistan's National Defense University. None of this would cost a lot of U.S. dollars and would yield potentially large results, as the new U.S. counterinsurgency strategy has done in Iraq.

Small amounts of U.S. aid in support of deradicalization programs for jailed Pakistani militants could also yield large returns. Such programs have had some success in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, and Singapore, but have not been tried in Pakistan. Pakistani officials would benefit from learning about best practices in countries that have already spent years in building up their own counter-radicalization programs.

A Regional Grand Bargain

With respect to the larger regional picture, the United States must also put serious diplomatic effort into settling the Kashmir dispute, which the Indians and Pakistanis have been moving forward on for the past several years with scant American support. Kashmir is a core grievance for many Pakistani Muslims and a training ground for jihadist terrorists, some of whom end up working with Al Qaeda. An equitable Kashmir settlement would curtail militancy and likely lead those elements of the Pakistani establishment who aid Kashmiri jihadi groups allied with Al Qaeda and the Taliban to withdraw their support.

As part of a regional grand bargain aimed at satisfying Pakistan, the United States should encourage Afghanistan to formally recognize the Durand Line of 1893 that demarcated Afghanistan's border with the British Raj and is the de facto border with Pakistan today. Afghanistan does not recognize the Durand Line and so technically claims territory deep inside Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. For Afghan leaders to continually complain about Pakistani incursions over a border they don't even acknowledge makes no sense.

Finally, a regional grand bargain could be accomplished in part by the new U.S. president convening a meeting of key concerned states, as happened at the Bonn Conference in late 2001, and which set the course for the Afghan political compact that held up reasonably well until the past year or so. The key players include Iran, Russia, India, China, Pakistan, and NATO countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada, all of which have an interest in preventing the continued rise of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Such a conference would have the side benefit that Pakistan would finally get the message that the continued existence of safe haven for militants on its western border is intolerable to the international community, including key allies such as China and the U.K.

Going After Al Qaeda

Turning to the fight against Al Qaeda itself, seven years after the September 11 attacks, the U.S. government still does not maintain a comprehensive database of the insurgents and terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Such a database, which would map the "facilitative nodes" that bring young men into the jihad, such as Web sites, operational planners, financiers, and jihadist underground networks, is urgently needed. One of the building blocks of such a database should be the identification of suicide attackers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which could be accomplished using DNA samples, accounts on jihadist Web sites, good intelligence work, and media reports.

The mapping of the social networks of terrorists should also include identification of the clerical mentors of suicide bombers, as it seems likely that only a relatively small number have persuaded their followers of the religious necessity of martyrdom. Armed with such intelligence, the United States and NATO could ask Pakistan, where most of the suicide attackers originate, to rein in especially egregious clerics.

The United States, together with the Pakistani and Afghan governments, should also target the production and distribution networks of As-Sahab, Al Qaeda's video/audio production arm, as well as the Taliban's analogous Ummat propaganda division. Given the close connections between these networks and Al Qaeda and the Taliban, such an effort would also provide important clues to the whereabouts of terrorist leaders.

It goes without saying that capturing or killing Osama bin Laden would be a psychological victory for the civilized world and a psychological defeat for Al Qaeda and its affiliates. As-Sahab represents perhaps the best way to locate the Al Qaeda leader because he continues to release tapes through the organization and will likely feel compelled to release a videotape as the U.S. presidential election approaches, just as he did just before the 2004 presidential election. Of course, capturing or killing bin Laden will not end the militant jihadist movement on the Afghan-Pakistan border. But it would be a really good start.

The Cost of Neglect

As the new president assumes office in January, some will no doubt advise him that increased American engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan of the sort outlined above will be too costly and dangerous. His best response will be that on September 11, 2001, we learned that we neglect Afghanistan and Pakistan at our peril.

Peter Bergen is a Senior Fellow and the co-director of the Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency Initiative at the New America Foundation. This paper -- the first publication from this new initiative -- is an expanded version of an article that first appeared in The New Republic.Thanks to Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation for her help on this paper.

Notes

[1] There have been conflicting reports about Baitullah Mehsud's possible death. As of early October 2008 he appears to be alive.

[2] Http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/10/world/asia/10terror.html.

[3] Http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/02/AR2008070202010.html.

[4] Http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1049a1Afghanistan-WhereThingsStand.pdf.

[5] "[As of May 22, 2008], nearly $45 billion has been appropriated for Iraq

reconstruction" (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31833.pdf).

[6] According to an August 2008 report by the Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2008/08/left_behind.html.

[7] According to General David McKiernan at a press conference in Washington DC on October 1 2008

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2374293.

[8] Http://www.ciaonet.org/journals/cs/v1i9/f_0002137_1217.pdf.

[9] Http://www.unama-afg.org/docs/_UN-Docs/UNAMA%20-%20SUICIDE%20ATTACKS%20STUDY%20-%20SEPT%209th%202007.pdf.

[10] Http://www.rand.org/pubs/monographs/2008/RAND_MG595.pdf.

[11] Https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/index.html; http://www.statpak.gov.pk/depts/pco/statistics/statistics.html.

[12] Http://www.terrorfreetomorrow.org/upimagestft/PakistanPollReportJune08.pdf.

The Energy Security for American Families Initiative

adminn — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 08:11:00 -0400

Redressing America's Public Infrastructure Deficit

Economic Growth — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:49:00 -0400

Chairman, Oberstar, Representative Mica, and Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify today on the question of "financing infrastructure investments."

Over the past several decades, we have accumulated a sizeable public infrastructure deficit. As a result, a variety of infrastructure bottlenecks-traffic congested roads, clogged ports, and an antiquated air traffic system, to mention just a few-have begun to undercut our economy's efficiency and undermine our quality of life.

Uprooted And Unstable

Ron Tang — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 11:44:00 -0400

Five years after the US -led invasion, Iraq remains a deeply violent and divided society. Faced with one of the largest displacement and humanitarian crises in the world, Iraqi civilians are in urgent need of assistance. Particularly vulnerable are the 2.7 million internally displaced Iraqis who have fled their homes for safer locations inside Iraq. Unable to access their food rations and often unemployed, they live in squalid conditions, have run out of resources and find it extremely difficult to access essential services. The US, the government of Iraq and the international community must begin to address the consequences of leaving Iraqis’ humanitarian needs unmet.

As a result of the vacuum created by the failure of both the Iraqi Government and the international community to act in a timely and adequate manner, non-state actors play a major role in providing assistance to vulnerable Iraqis. Militias of all denominations are improving their local base of support by providing social services in the neighborhoods and towns they control. Through a “Hezbollah-like” scheme, the Shiite Sadrist movement has established itself as the main service provider in the country. Similarly, other Shiite and Sunni groups are gaining ground and support through the delivery of food, oil, electricity, clothes and money to the civilians living in their fiefdoms. Not only do these militias now have a quasi-monopoly in the large-scale provision of assistance in Iraq, they are also recruiting an increasing number of civilians to their militias -- including displaced Iraqis.

Since the beginning of the crisis, the Government of Iraq has proven to be unwilling and unable to respond to the needs of vulnerable Iraqis. Although it has access to large sums of money, it is divided along sectarian lines, lacking both the capacity and the political will to use its important resources to address humanitarian needs. As a result, the government does not have any credibility left with Iraqis. The little assistance provided by the government is perceived by most as being biased in favor of the Shiite population, especially when it comes to the delivery of government services such as electricity or food ration cards from the Public Distribution System.

The international community has been largely in denial over the disastrous humanitarian situation in Iraq, and has until recently seen Iraq through the prism of reconstruction and development, and failed to address urgent needs. Only recently has the United Nations issued a common humanitarian appeal for Iraq, recognizing the nature of the situation and the need for all agencies to step up and address humanitarian needs.

Hindered by its political mandate in Iraq, and its lack of access to most of the country, the UN has no other choice than to rely on local partners to reach out to the communities most in need. By taking advantage of the “balkanization” of Iraq to identify interlocutors who can facilitate access throughout the country, the UN can create a larger space to meet humanitarian needs. Identifying and supporting local, non-governmental organizations that are known and trusted by the communities they serve will also be essential if the UN is to take a more important role in humanitarian assistance inside Iraq.

Ongoing violence in Diyala and Mosul, as well as recent events in Basra and Baghdad, have proven that the situation in Iraq is still too unstable and violent for people to return home. Of those Iraqis who have returned from Syria, most were unable to go back to their homes, as they would likely be attacked again, and had to move into homogenous, sectarian areas. Others found their homes occupied, and were unable to recover them.

While everyone hopes that Iraqi refugees and internally displaced people will be able to return to their homes in the future, the necessary conditions for returns to take place in safety and in dignity do not exist. All relevant actors should discourage returns until the violence subsides and people can receive adequate assistance and protection. In particular, the Government of Iraq should no longer use returns as an indicator of success in stabilizing the country. Returns -- like the rest of the humanitarian situation -- should not be used as a political tool by any of the parties to the conflict.

It is also difficult for people to return home because they have minimal access to basic services and the Government of Iraq does not have a clear strategy to handle returns. Moreover, property disputes are already emerging, as many houses of people who previously fled are now occupied by others who will be reluctant to give them up. Disputes are currently settled in an ad hoc manner, by a variety of actors such as the Iraqi army, the Iraqi police, or the militia in control of the neighborhood. For any return movement to be sustainable, the Iraqi Government, with the support and expertise of the international community, must devise a strategy to deal with property disputes, in a larger transitional justice framework. In the meantime, the Iraqi Government must ensure that property rights -- and their violations -- are documented.

Current Iraqi and American strategies for responding to Iraqi displacement assume that security will improve steadily over the next two years. However, the situation in Iraq remains volatile, and the Government of Iraq, the UN, the US government and other members of the international community must develop plans for Iraq based on all possible scenarios, including a deterioration of the security situation. Negotiations must begin with regional and local governments to ensure that people will be allowed to seek asylum in both Iraq and in the region in case violence increases and displacement resumes in large numbers. For Iraq to have any future, international donors must ensure that resources are allocated to the humanitarian response, and that all appeals are fully funded. As for the UN, it needs to develop its network of local actors, and reach out to all vulnerable Iraqis -- whether or not they are displaced.

Failure to address the needs of Iraqis will have dramatic impacts on security inside Iraq. The hope that does exist lies in the efforts of Iraq’s citizens. Iraqi organizations are providing lifesaving assistance throughout the country and the international community must increase efforts to reach out to these groups and provide them with the funds to continue their work. Ultimately, only Iraqis can save Iraq.

For the full text of the report, please see the PDF attached below.

What Does 'Post-Partisan' Mean?

Next Social Contract — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 00:00:00 -0500

One might well have imagined over the last few years that we were headed toward an era of deeply partisan politics. Under the tutelage of Karl Rove, the Bush Administration “played to the base.” Most of the energy on the other end of the spectrum came from “netroots” bloggers who flamed Hillary Clinton, Joe Lieberman, and the centrist Democratic Leadership Conference with nearly the same contempt they showed for George W. Bush and Karl Rove. Yet here we find ourselves at a moment many describe a “post-partisan” -- with the two front-running Presidential candidates, McCain and Obama, best known for their ability work with and show respect for members of the opposite party. How did we get here, and what exactly is here?

While Obama may have nice things to say about Ronald Reagan, and while John McCain may be famous for crossing his party's leadership, there is no indication that voters themselves are becoming any less partisan. What helps make sense of the phenomenon is to realize that post-partisanship isn't about transcending left-right partisan loyalty. Instead, in both its original, and its evolving new meaning, it's substantially about generational change and generational equity.

For the full text of Longman's paper, please see the PDF attached below.

Yeoman's Return

Next Social Contract — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:28:00 -0500

Though Americans are deeply divided in their politics, they still generally share one transcendent political value. It is the distinctly American notion that the widespread ownership of property—particularly homes, small businesses, and financial savings—benefits individuals and the nation. This core American belief descends from a political tradition in American life that is older than the Republic itself. It is the Yeoman ideal—which holds that small-scale property ownership confers special dignity and autonomy to the individual, while also improving civic participation and serving as a check on monopoly capital.

From Jeffersonian farmer to unionized craft tradesman to internet entrepreneur, the values of the yeoman have given shape to American politics. Challenged by the issue of slavery and later by the spread of mass production and consumerism, it is a tradition that nearly flickered out among both Republicans and Democrats in the 1950s, 60s and 70s, but that has been gaining new relevancy and urgency ever since.

The reasons include the declining market power of wage earners in a global economy and the unraveling of employersponsored health and pension systems—trends that increase the importance of asset ownership and economic self-sufficiency. They also include new technologies and shifts in consumer preferences that promise to favor small producers and holders of capital in the future if enabled by appropriate public policies.

Because of the long hold and widespread appeal of the yeoman ideal on the American political imagination, a politics that pays honor to this tradition has the potential to bridge the country’s cultural divides while also advancing progressive policy agendas, ranging from health care, “open access” wireless communication and baby bonds, to antitrust and farm policy.

For a complete version of the paper, please click on the attached PDF below.

Back to Basics: A Pro-Growth Public Investment Strategy

Economic Growth — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:32:00 -0500

For more than a decade, rising asset prices have driven the economy, benefiting the wealthy but doing relatively little to improve either the economic status of the majority of Americans or the country’s overall competitiveness. Rising stock and housing prices created staggering short-term increases in wealth for some, but did little to bolster the nation’s preeminence in technology, industry, or agriculture.

In order to retool the economy and generate balanced, robust job growth, the government should focus on rebuilding and enhancing the nation’s energy, transportation, and communications infrastructure. Judicious investment in renewing and creating critical public goods will provide opportunities to all income classes and help ensure that employment keeps pace with population growth. We refer to this approach as “back to basics,” are turn to the sort of sensible public agenda that strengthened the economy and promoted societal well-being in the past.

In contrast, over the past 20 years, while returns to capital and the incomes of those in certain elite occupations grew rapidly, wages for lower-income and middle-class workers stagnated. To be sure, most families spend much less on food than they did in 1960, and the number of people earning over $100,000 a year has risen by over 13 percent since 1979. Yet, it has become increasingly difficult for families with two incomes to maintain a “middle-class lifestyle,” and single-earner households find it hard to keep pace with the rising costs of education, housing, and health insurance.

Almost all of the recent gains in wealth have been achieved by the relatively small number of Americans with incomes more than seven times the poverty level. In the meantime, middle-tier educated and skilled workers have been losing ground. This striking disparity is evident in income and wealth data, which show that the top 1 percent of U.S. house holds now accounts for as much of the nation’s total wealth as it did in 1913, when monopolistic business practices were the order of the day. The net worth of the top 1 percent is now greater than that of the bottom 90 percent of the nation’s households combined.6 Nearly three-quarters of all income gains from 1979 to 2000 were realized by the top 20 percent of taxpayers.

In view of these trends, it is not surprising that Americans are increasingly pessimistic about the prospects for upward mobility. For the first time in our nation’s history, two thirds of all Americans think life will not be better for their children.

A large measure of this national unease is related to our failure to invest in and maintain critical infrastructure. In the past, the belief that it was possible to better one’s economic condition by working hard was reinforced by the public and private investment in transportation systems, scientific research, and technological development that fueled economic advancement. At present, however, Americans see government as being incapable of providing up-to-date transportation systems, reliable water supplies, or even basic education. The Katrina disaster, which led to the near-destruction of New Orleans and was largely caused by local, state, and federal failures to build and repair infrastructure, crystallized these concerns.

For the full report, please see the attached PDF file below.

The American Social Contract: From Drift to Mastery

Next Social Contract — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 08:31:00 -0400

Executive Summary

Our social contract -- the formal and informal, public and private arrangements by which we ensure economic security and opportunity -- has evolved over the course of American history in response to changing economic and political conditions and demographic realities. This evolutionary process, in which the balance between individual responsibility and the responsibilities of government, employers, and civil society has been struck and restruck, has proceeded in fits and starts. Change has come quickly at times of crisis and slowly, almost invisibly, at other times. Over the past three decades, transformations in the economy, in corporate governance, and in the nature of work have pushed the social contract out of balance. Unfortunately, these decades were also marked by political timidity regarding public action and have led to a period of drift. As a consequence, entry into the middle class is closing, American families are increasingly insecure, and inequality of income and wealth has reached unprecedented levels. Our social contract is overdue for rethinking.

To take command of our economic future and restore balance to the social contract, we would do well to be guided by three principles. First, we should keep in mind that security and opportunity are not mutually exclusive alternatives. If individuals are to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in a dynamic economy, they will need the security provided by social insurance, individual assets, and portable benefits. Second, we should not be constrained by preconceived notions about the appropriate size of government or levels of federal taxation. For example, we should be open to the idea that a system in which health care costs were effectively socialized, lifting a burden from private enterprise, could lead to strong economic growth. Third, the next social contract should be future-proof. We do not know what challenges we will face in the global economy of the future; the only safe bet is that change will come faster than we can imagine. We must make the next social contract resilient enough to help Americans navigate the global economy for many decades to come.

For a complete version of the paper, please see the attached PDF below.

A Citizen-Based Social Contract

adminn — Fri, 20 Jul 2007 13:58:00 -0400

Executive Summary

In the 20th century, Americans adopted a new "social contract" -- a support system to help provide every American with the basic security and goods considered necessary to enjoy a productive and enterprising life. Under a sound social contract, access to these goods should not depend on where you work, where you live, or what you believe. At its best, the American social contract is citizen-based.

A citizen-based social contract resonates with the American democratic republican values of personal independence and social equality. At the same time, a citizen-based social contract achieves a number of utilitarian goals, including liberating enterprise, facilitating job mobility, taking advantage of the sophistication of contemporary Americans, and strengthening American families. It should not eliminate all risks, but provide the basis for entrepreneurial risk-taking essential to innovation and development.

The next social contract should help to promote the fulfillment of "the promise of American life" -- the promise of opportunity coupled with responsibility for all Americans. The next American social contract, building on the successes of the past, should better enable new generations to achieve enduring American goals.

Fort the complete principles paper, please see the attached PDF below.

About the Next Social Contract Initiative

The Next Social Contract Initiative aims to reinvent American social policy for the 21st century. Through a program of research and public education, the initiative will explore the origins of our modern social contract, articulate the guiding principles for constructing a new contract, and advance a set of promising policy reforms. To learn more about this initiative, please click here.

Egypt: Respond to the Needs of Iraqi Refugees

Ron Tang — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 13:54:00 -0400

Over two million Iraqi refugees have fled their country’s borders since the American-led invasion that overthrew the regime of Saddam Hussein. Although the largest concentrations are in Syria and Jordan, up to 150,000 Iraqis have settled in Egypt. Wary of the massive influx experienced in Syria and Jordan, the Egyptian authorities have reportedly closed their door to new Iraqis and have not granted those Iraqis who have made it to Egypt any official status or access to social services. While the international community has recently begun to emerge from its own denial of the Iraqi refugee crisis, it too offers few resources to Iraqi refugees. It is crucial that Egypt, donor governments, and the United Nations begin responding to their needs.

Refugees in Egypt include more than thirty nationalities. Most are Sudanese, Somali or Palestinian. Iraqis who have made their way to Egypt have arrived on one-month tourist visas that they extend in Cairo for additional months. During 2006, however, it became more difficult for Iraqis to obtain Egyptian visas through travel agencies in Baghdad, forcing Iraqis to go to Jordan or Syria. As Egypt tightened its restrictions it was widely reported that only through costly bribes could an Iraqi obtain an Egyptian visa, and soon even that did not suffice.

Unlike Lebanon, Syria and Jordan, Egypt is a signatory to the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, but it signed the Convention with reservations on all provisions granting refugees the right to work and access to public services. Iraqis are able to obtain asylum seeker’s cards from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) which are similar to the temporary protection cards the UNHCR offers in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Most Iraqis have not yet registered with the UNHCR. As of March 2006, fewer than 6,000 had registered with the UNHCR office in Cairo, although the agency believed it would be able to register up to 20,000 in 2007.

Some of the Iraqis in Egypt came with resources and have succeeded in opening businesses and obtaining residency. But many others have run out of savings and are being reduced to subsisting without any hope. Many have fallen into an illegal status and fear having to return to Iraq. On a recent mission to Egypt, Refugees International documented cases of kidnappings for extortion prior to the departure of families from Iraq, forcing them to sell property and assets to meet kidnappers’ demands. Others had been confronted with such extreme threats that they did not have time to sell their homes, businesses or cars. One Iraqi, a former business owner in Baghdad, told RI, “I had a choice between saving my house and my shop or saving my children.”

All were surprised by how much more expensive life in Egypt was than they had expected. Their savings have been depleted because they are unable to work legally. Egypt suffers from high unemployment. The presence of thousands of Sudanese refugees puts a further strain on the economy and welfare system. Those without sufficient resources to open their own businesses, which by law requires an Egyptian partner, are pushed into the informal sector, where competition for work is high and salaries extremely low.

The Iraqi refugees in Egypt live predominantly in Cairo and cities built around it, though some also live in Alexandria. These are vast urban areas, which makes it harder for aid organizations to identify and reach them. Iraqis face many of the same difficulties typically associated with the urban poor. But they are also uprooted and traumatized by the violence inflicted upon them, the emotional scars and the insecurity resulting from their uncertain legal status. Housing is one of the most pressing needs, as many had owned their homes in Iraq and now are faced with high rents without income to sustain the new costs. “I only have enough for my family to survive for a couple of months,” an Iraqi man from Baghdad told RI. “After that, we will be in God’s hands.” In addition, Iraqi children do not have access to public schools in most of Egypt, and most cannot afford private school tuition.

Although one NGO provides legal aid and another provides some meager financial assistance, Iraqis are mostly left to fend for themselves, just as in Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The current political environment in Egypt makes it difficult to establish an NGO, as the government is suspicious of any form of public association. Dealing with the rights and needs of Iraqi refugees will be particularly challenging for national and international NGOs as the Egyptian government is reluctant to continue hosting Iraqis.

Egypt is a majority Sunni Arab country and its President has already made statements supporting Sunnis regionally and criticizing Shiites. Within Egypt, Shiites are not free to practice their ceremonies openly. Iraqi Shiites report facing harassment as well. According to one senior Egyptian official, one reason why Egypt has shut its doors to Iraqi refugees is because it is concerned that most of these refugees are Sunnis and it does not want to facilitate Iraq becoming a Shiite state. There are also unfounded rumors in Egypt, as in elsewhere in the region, that Sunnis are converting to Shiism.

The main reason cited by Egyptian officials for the new restrictions placed on Iraqi refugees is concern over security. Iraqis are viewed as potential perpetrators of violence and terrorism who may threaten Egypt’s fragile economy, which relies on foreign tourists.

Refugees International recommends:

The U.S. and other international donors fully fund UNHCR’s 2007 appeal for Iraqi refugees. The U.S. government should take the lead and support at least 50% of UNHCR’s total appeal.
The U.S. and other donors provide bilateral financial assistance to host countries, including Egypt, with specific earmarks for services for Iraqi refugees and others, including vulnerable Egyptians.
UNHCR prepare additional appeals to address the needs of Iraqi refugees throughout the region. Appeals must be based on needs, not on expectations of what donors will provide.
UNHCR work with host governments, with support from UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the UN Development Program, to devise a strategy to expand domestic educational and medical services so that they can address the needs of the Iraqi refugee community. Until then, UNHCR and international donors should expand their support for local organizations that subsidize education and provide medical services for Iraqis.
UNHCR work with its implementing partners to ensure that adequate mental health services are available to Iraqi refugees.
The UN World Food Program work with UNHCR to provide food support for Iraqis in order to allow them to free up resources to cover housing costs; UNHCR should also consider allocating funds for housing subsidies for the most vulnerable families.
International NGOs address the Iraqi refugee crisis in Egypt, and work with their embassies, UNHCR and host governments to obtain legal status to do so.
UNHCR monitor housing, education, and medical services to ensure that discrimination by nationality, ethnicity, religion, or other factors is not limiting services to Iraqi refugees.
Egypt re-open its borders to Iraqi refugees, both from its embassies in Jordan and Syria and in Baghdad.
As a signatory to the 1951Refugee Convention, Egypt abandon its reservations and grant refugees the full rights stipulated in the Convention.

Iraq: Fix the Public Distribution System To Meet Needs Of the Displaced

Ron Tang — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 13:51:00 -0400

Iraq’s internally displaced are in desperate need of assistance as the Public Distribution System (PDS) that they and other Iraqis depend on for food and fuel is broken. Poor management is to blame for its shortcomings, as well as terrible security and a general lack of political will on the part of the Government of Iraq to acknowledge the scope of the crisis. With the central government unable or at times unwilling to protect and assist Iraqi civilians, donor governments must step in to fill the gaps. Reform of the PDS should be a priority, and agencies such as the US Department of Agriculture and the UN World Food Program (WFP) must provide the technical assistance required to ensure the system is once again fully functional and able to reach the most vulnerable Iraqis.

Under the former regime of Saddam Hussein every Iraqi had the right to receive rations through the PDS system established during the sanctions period in the context of the Oil for Food program that began in 1995. Run by the Iraqi Ministry of Trade, the PDS was one of the most efficient institutions of the Iraqi state. Iraq, which had once been a net exporter of food, depended on imports, importing up to four hundred and eighty tons of food per month before the war. Eighty percent of Iraqis benefited from the PDS and for sixty percent of Iraqis the food basket was their only source of outside support. Ministry of Trade distribution warehouses throughout the country fed local branches. Each family had a card it redeemed in the neighborhood PDS branch. The family was tied to that branch alone.

Following the American-led military coalition’s overthrow of the former regime, the Oil for Food program was interrupted. The UN World Food Program (WFP) stepped in to fill the void, supporting the existing infrastructure. After the war, food rations became more important than ever. There were fewer jobs and no salaries.

The new Iraqi government was able to resume running the PDS and its efficiency meant that in 2004, as the Iraqi elections were being organized for January 2005, the PDS rolls supplied the data used for voter registration. The quality of the data was remarkably accurate. Ninety percent of people found themselves on the list, though there was a 20 percent error rate in details such as date of birth and place of birth. Food was simply swapped for ballots. Thus the PDS cards acquired a new political significance, and this significance still lasts today, even though the cards are technically separated.

With around one million Iraqis internally displaced before the March 2003 war and the additional recent displacement of nearly one million Iraqis due to factional violence, the PDS system is now more important than ever to reach these vulnerable people, who often have no source of livelihood. The effectiveness and efficiency of the PDS, however, have declined significantly. Roads throughout Iraq have become increasingly treacherous as the result of criminal gangs and militias. This has meant that PDS supply trucks are often unable to reach their destined governorates, leaving much of the country cut off. Administrative corruption has weakened the efficiency of the distribution system. Those supply convoys that do reach their destination often carry only limited amounts of the PDS basket, with key items missing.

Like other UN agencies, the WFP views its role as supporting the Iraqi government. Thus, its assistance programs are managed by the government, and it does not act unilaterally or against the government’s will. Taking over the management of the crumbling PDS would be another indicator that the Iraqi state is failing, and WFP and other agencies are reluctant to take any step that would suggest this is the case.

The situation in the three northern governorates of Erbil, Dohuk and Suleimaniya illustrates the vulnerability of internally displaced people as the result of their inability to access the Public Distribution System. These three governorates, often referred to as Kurdistan by the Kurds who make up their majority, have been an exception to the violence in the rest of Iraq. As a result many internally displaced Iraqis, at least 150,000 in the estimate of Refugees International, have sought shelter there. They all had to seek permission from the Kurdish authorities prior to gaining access to the north.

These internally displaced Iraqis represent all segments of Iraqi society. They are Kurds from other parts of Iraq such as Mosul, Baghdad or Diyala; they are also Christians, Turkmans, and Sunni and Shiite Arabs. Some fled the general state of violence while others fled direct threats. Many could not take their belongings with them. Most rent houses or apartments at prices far higher than what they were accustomed to. Most are also unable to find work. There are few support networks or organizations providing help to these needy Iraqis. The PDS would be more important than ever, but it does not reach those Iraqis internally displaced in the three northern governorates.

In late February and early March, Refugees International visited numerous internally displaced people in the cities and villages of the three northern governorates, and interviewed government officials, local authorities and representatives of the United Nations and non-governmental organizations that provide aid. Based on these visits and meetings, Refugees International believes that virtually none of the post-2003 internally displaced people in the three northern governorates have access to the PDS, putting them in a dire financial situation. “Without the monthly food rations, I don’t know how to feed my children,” a Sunni Arab woman from Baghdad told RI. Because the PDS cards for each Iraqi family are tied to a specific location, when a family relocates it must apply at its local PDS branch for the transfer of its card, which must then be processed at the Ministry of Trade before the new PDS branch is notified.

The insecurity and violence that have caused so many Iraqis to flee prevent them from returning to the very neighborhoods they fled in order to apply for the PDS transfer. As a result, most of the displaced in the north manage to obtain some of their PDS rations only on rare occasions when relatives send the rations to them or when they pay others to collect the rations. Although some have tried to transfer their PDS registration cards, none have succeeded.

This can be attributed in part to the difficulties the Iraqi government faces operating in such a restrictive security environment. The insurgency has cut off governorates and government offices from one another. Security concerns dominate all other priorities.

But Refugees International is concerned that there are also political reasons preventing the transfer of PDS cards to new locations. Iraqi authorities are in denial about the extent of the violence and displacement, maintaining that it is a small scale and temporary problem. As such they are reluctant to initiate a process that could enshrine the displacement, potentially encouraging the displaced to view their new locations as permanent. Given Iraq’s sectarian and ethnic strife, any demographic shifts are inherently laden with political implications. Both the Iraqi government, dominated as it is by a Shiite coalition, and the Kurdish government in the north are reluctant to lose their constituencies due to the displacement.

Because the PDS cards are also the basis for voter registration, and Iraqis vote according to the location where they are registered, any transfer of the PDS card could conceivably allow Iraqis to vote in their new locations. This is something the Kurdish authorities, facing a wave of Arab migration from the south, are particularly sensitive about. Refugees International has been told that Shiite IDPs who have fled from other parts of Iraq to the south have on occasion been successful in changing their PDS locations, perhaps because the Shiite-dominated government is sympathetic to their plight and they have moved into friendly Shiite-dominated governorates.

Therefore, Refugees International recommends that:

Iraqi security forces and Multi-National Coalition forces increase security for the PDS supply convoys along the roads in Iraq and for the PDS warehouses.
The Iraqi Anti-Corruption Commission vigilantly pursue cases of administrative corruption in the Ministry of Trade.
A temporary PDS card system be established so that the displaced can receive their rations without any implications for their permanent residence or their voting status.
The US Department of Agriculture advise and assist the Iraqi Ministry of Trade to reform the PDS system.
The UN recognize that Iraq is in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and not merely a country in need of support and development. WFP should be empowered to step in directly to bolster the PDS system.

Is The United States Losing Turkey?

adminn — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 02:05:00 -0400

On February 5th and 6th, 2007, the Hudson Institute, with support from the Smith Richardson Foundation, convened a small workshop of noted specialists on Turkey, Europe, and international security to assess the state of America’s alliance with Turkey and, more specifically, to ascertain whether the United States risks “losing” Turkey as a long-time and critical ally. The workshop was part of a project directed by Rajan Menon, Professor of International Relations at Lehigh University and Fellow at the New America Foundation. S. Enders Wimbush, Director of the Center for Future Security Strategies at the Hudson Institute, served as chairman of the workshop. This report, while it draws on the discussions that occurred during the workshop, is an independent analysis written by Messrs. Menon and Wimbush. The memoranda prepared by the experts in advance of the workshop and the list of participants appear in the appendix to this document.

The alliance between the United States and Turkey, which has endured since the 1947 Truman Doctrine and has contributed to the security of both countries, is now in serious trouble. What is worse, neither side is facing up to this reality, let alone taking serious remedial measures, nor even making concerted efforts to understand the new political currents within each other’s societies.

If this neglect continues, the price paid by both sides will be steep. It is becoming increasingly clear that Washington and Ankara see the world and define their interests in divergent ways. If allowed to continue, this trend could well undo the alliance. The good news is that there is still time to act, providing senior leaders on both sides move with dispatch. It is urgent that they do so, for despite the end of the Cold War, which provided a clear rationale for their alliance for four decades, Ankara and Washington still need each other, perhaps more so because they now face multiple and unfamiliar threats, not least those posed by terrorism.

The most important source of discord between Turkey and the United States is the war in Iraq. Ankara fears that Iraq will break up as a result of the war and that a separate Kurdish state will arise, creating even greater disorder and stoking separatist sentiment in Turkey’s southeast, and increasing paramilitary and terrorist attacks by the Kurdish separatist organization, the PKK. Washington, for its part, feels betrayed by the Turkish parliament’s rejection of its request to open a second front from Turkey’s territory against Saddam Hussein’s army in the run-up to the 2003 war. But more fundamentally, the Bush administration is preoccupied by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and seems to have relegated Turkey to the back burner -- or so it appears to many Turks.

The widespread belief among Turks that the United States undertook the Iraq war without regard to the consequences for Turkey’s security and that Washington now seeks to punish it for the Turkish parliament’s vote has created enormous resentment toward the United States. This sentiment is reflected across the political spectrum. It is evident among elites, including the leadership of the Turkish military, arguably the country’s most influential institution, but also pervades society more generally. Opinion polls show that Turks, who once viewed the United States as an ally and friend, increasingly see it as not just unfriendly, but as a direct threat to their national security. As a result, influential Turks, government officials and foreign policy experts alike, are discussing a strategic reassessment. This reorientation would involve building deep ties with new partners, among them Russia, China, Iran, and Syria and would, moreover, abandon the longstanding premise that the United States remains the indispensable ally.

It would be mistaken for the United States to dismiss these discussions as bluster. Turkey remains a crucial ally in the struggle against terrorism; it is a secular and democratic Muslim country; it sits atop an arc extending from Israel to Central Asia, a zone of actual or potential upheaval and war; it abuts waterways critical to the flow of commerce, particularly oil; its territory is a corridor for the strategically important Baku-Ceyhan oil pipeline; and its cooperation is key to a durable settlement in Iraq and to an effective policy to counter the challenges posed by a resurgent (and potentially nuclear-armed) Iran.

Washington must take urgent steps to protect the US-Turkish alliance from further harm:

Recognize that its alliance with Turkey could be in jeopardy.
Establish high-level joint working groups that are tasked with proposing concrete measures to safeguard the alliance and to ensure its relevance for the post-Cold War world.
Make Turkey a central partner in fashioning a political settlement in Iraq and engage in regular consultations and joint planning to this end.
Work with both the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) in northern Iraq and the Turkish leadership to prevent the dispute over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq (contested by the Kurds and by the Turkmen, who are supported by Turkey) from precipitating open warfare and possible Turkish intervention, which could further dent America’s alliance with Turkey.
Fashion a “grand bargain” between the KRG and Turkey that includes specific and enforceable provisions to assure the KRG that Turkey will not invade Iraqi Kurdistan to forestall the possibility of an independent Kurdish state and to guarantee Turkey that the KRG will not permit the PKK to use northern Iraq as a base of operations.

For the complete report -- including memoranda from other Turkey specialists participating in the workshop -- please see the PDF version attached below.

An Energy Efficiency Trading System

adminn — Thu, 01 Feb 2007 00:42:00 -0500

Click here for a brief video discussion of this idea.

Reducing the economic and environmental risks of excessive energy use must become one of America's most important national goals. The most promising way forward is to reduce energy demand by spurring a revolution in energy efficiency. Indeed, efficiency is America's largest and most cost-effective potential energy resource.

Phasing in tough new energy standards for America's biggest energy users and making energy efficiency tradable -- much the way we now trade oil and natural gas -- would quickly reduce total energy consumption while limiting carbon emissions. A market for standardized efficiency credits (white tags) will give utilities, builders, and vehicle manufacturers flexibility in meeting strict efficiency goals while stimulating new technologies, creating jobs, and improving the nation's overall productivity and competitiveness.

The full text of this essay is available below in PDF format. To learn more about our other Big Ideas for a New America, please click here.

Universal Risk Insurance

adminn — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 09:57:00 -0500

In recent decades there has been a massive transfer of economic risk from shared institutional arrangements, such as unemployment insurance and basic benefit coverage provided by employers, onto the fragile balance sheets of families. Yet public programs have largely failed to respond.

"Universal Insurance" is a new response to this growing problem. It would provide short-term, stop-loss protection to families whose income (after taxes and public benefits) suddenly decline by a fifth or more due to job loss or catastrophic health expenses. All but the richest families would be eligible, but the program would be most generous for low-income families.

This type of broad-based insurance -- covering a range of risks but focused on substantial income drops or losses -- would provide a flexible new platform of security in a world of rapidly changing risks.

The full text of this essay is available below in PDF format. An expanded version of this paper was originally prepared for The Hamilton Project at The Brookings Institution, and is available at www.hamiltonproject.org.

To learn more about our other Big Ideas for a New America, please click here.

How Research on Family Structure and Children's Development Can Inform Healthy Marriage Practitioners in the Field

Workforce and Family — Fri, 01 Dec 2006 05:00:00 -0500

Is children’s development, and children’s cognitive development in particular, affected by the marital status of their parents? On the face of it, this seems to be a simple question to which there is an intuitively simple answer: yes. Yet the answer to this question is anything but simple. The complexity of this question, the policy context that has helped shape a growing body of related research, and the implications of findings for policy and practice are discussed below. The following discussion is based on my remarks during the plenary session of Connecting Marriage Research to Practice, a conference sponsored by The African American Healthy Marriage Initiative.

While we can readily observe that children in married-parent families tend to be significantly better off than children raised by single or cohabiting parents, it is more difficult to discern how much better off children without married parents would be if their parents were to marry. An extensive body of research on this topic suggests that marriage would confer benefits on these children, even those within disadvantaged families.

The research further suggests that the conduits for these benefits tend to be attributes commonly associated with marriage, such as improved economics and stronger family processes, more so than the marital choice itself. These findings help us understand why marriage matters and provide valuable insights for policy and practice within the Healthy Marriage Initiative.

For the complete issue brief, please see the attached PDF version below.

Rebuilding America's Productive Economy

adminn — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 18:04:00 -0500

From its inception as a nation, America's great advantage over its global rivals has stemmed largely from the successful development of its vast interior. The Heartland has been both the incubator of national identity and an outlet for the entrepreneurial energies of both immigrants and those living in dense urban areas.

The term "Heartland" is commonly used to describe the region west of the Mississippi River and east of the Rocky Mountains. This region constitutes the primary focus of this report, although we believe our policy prescriptions also apply to other parts of the country that are culturally similar to the Great Plains and the Midwest, including the inland valleys of the Pacific Northwest and California, as well as parts of central Florida and Pennsylvania.

Historically, and with some exceptions -- notably the South -- the Heartland was dominated by capitalist principles and shaped by the forces of innovation, competition, and a continuous search for maximum economic return. The Heartland contributed significantly to America's development as a global economic power. Over the past century, however, the role of the Heartland declined, as the United States evolved from a primarily agricultural to an industrial and finally an information-based economy. With the move toward manufactured goods and high-end services, the focus of economic development shifted from the agricultural interior toward the great metropolitan regions.

In the early 1900s, Americans began leaving rural areas for cities and suburbs. Farms were consolidated, some were abandoned. The country's interior landscape -- from the rural West to the Great Plains to the Eastern Seaboard -- was littered with shrinking towns and villages.

In the 1970s, however, this dynamic began to change. For the first time in decades, the number of Americans moving to nonmetropolitan areas began to grow. People moved first to the areas closest to the big cities, then increasingly to small towns and cities far from the metropolitan core regions. Small towns, from the Great Plains to New England, began to display new signs of life.

Several factors appear to have contributed to this phenomenon. Perhaps the most important has been the rising cost of living, particularly the cost of housing, in the coastal regions of the country, making lower-cost locales more attractive to both business and individuals. Another has been the technological revolution that allows companies in traditionally urban-centered fields -- from hightechnology services to manufacturing and warehousing -- to consider locating far from the major metropolitan areas.

As the nation's population grows from roughly 300 million today to some 400 million in 2050, these factors will become even more important. High-speed communications, the development of regional airports, and the availability of urban amenities in once remote places will make the Heartland increasingly attractive to immigrants, skilled workers, and entrepreneurs. The recent development of the Heartland has been sporadic, however, and so long as the region lags behind the rest of the country economically, America's national productive capacity will remain far below its potential.

A great opportunity for 21st Century America lies in the Heartland's vast acreage and abundant natural resources. However, we envision the Heartland as far more than an agricultural zone. Certainly, food production -- particularly in high-value products -- will remain an important component of the Heartland economy. But we also see a future in which high-technology services and communications, energy production, and manufacturing and warehousing will become critical levers for new employment and wealth creation in the Heartland.

We believe this new vision of the Heartland is already taking shape. In contrast to the picture of emptying towns and embattled farmers so often conveyed in the media, we see the Heartland as a potential hotbed of capitalist creation and innovation. It is a reality already taking shape in the "technology corridors" in the Dakotas, the "hidden tech" belt of western Massachusetts, and the revived communities along the eastern Cascades, and with the growth of ethanol and biomass facilities across the country.

Realizing the Heartland's full potential will require intelligent public policy. From the earliest days of the Republic, government has played a role in the region's development, whether through the building of roads, canals, railroads, and airports, or the establishment of land grant colleges, conservation programs, and export markets.

According to the American Society of Civil Engineers, the United States needs to invest $1.6 trillion in infrastructure improvements over the next five years. The need for such improvements is particularly acute in the Heartland, especially with respect to transportation and telecommunications. There is also a need for sizeable investment in highly specialized infrastructure, such as highspeed optical networks, university research and laboratory facilities, technology training centers, and research parks. New facilities to distribute the region's energy resources to the rest of the country -- including pipelines to supply the water necessary to propel both energy production and manufacturing -- will also be needed.

America's economy may well be on the verge of a great resurgence largely unacknowledged by pundits, academics, and the media. The Heartland will play a critical role in that resurgence -- if we develop the right policies.

For the complete report, please see the attached PDF version below.

Relative Care Creates Powerful Bonds for Children

adminn — Mon, 01 Aug 2005 00:00:00 -0400

So boy, don't you turn back.
Don't you set down on the steps
‘Cause you finds it's kinder hard.
Don't you fall now --
For I'se still goin', honey,
I'se still climbin',
And life for me ain't been no crystal stair.
--"Mother to Son," Langston Hughes

Family, with all its strengths and complexities, is a cornerstone of American culture. For generations, grandparents and other relatives have stepped forward to raise children whose parents cannot. And while family members still provide a vital safety net for children at-risk, the obstacles facing these families are more formidable than ever. "Fifty years ago, the entire family and the community we're expected to join together and do their part to help," explains one Washington, DC grandmother raising three ngrandchildren. "These days there is no one else to help. No one wants the responsibility. No one wants the heartache."

Substance abuse, incarceration, domestic violence, physical and mental illness, teen pregnancy and other serious problems have resulted in more than 6 million children who currently live in grandparent-headed households. According to the most recent U.S. Census, 2.4 million grandparents report they are responsible for their grandchildren's basic needs. Increasingly, great-grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and siblings are also taking on the role of substitute parents—either through family agreements or under the supervision of state child welfare agencies and courts.

The Changing Face of Relative Care in America

Inside and outside the foster care system, life is not easy for children raised by grandparents and other relatives. Without court-sanctioned legal custody or guardianship, family members find it difficult to access even the most basic benefits and services. "If children are living with relatives informally, their caregivers are often unable to enroll their grandchildren in school, obtain medical care and make all the other day-to-day decisions parents take for granted," says Sherry Neal, Director of the Grandparent/Relative Caregiver Project at Atlanta's Legal Aid Society.

The emotional stress of raising a child is also hard on caregivers, especially for older, disabled or poor caregivers who may have serious health problems of their own. Children raised by grandparents and other caregivers are more likely to have a range of special needs including complications from low birth weight, ADHD and other developmental and behavioral issues that result from parental substance abuse. These problems can be exacerbated by the parents themselves, who often move in and out of their children's lives unpredictably and with little accountability.

Even caregivers who are caring for children under the "watchful" eye of the child welfare system are often at a disadvantage. "In our experience, relatives are offered and receive fewer services than non-kin caregivers," says Legal Aid's Neal. "A lot of times, the agency views relatives as a way to prevent children from coming into the system in the first place, so they rarely provide the services necessary to truly support the placement." In many cases, the lack of services to relatives when a child first comes into care can also result in additional complications for court personnel. "One reason that so many CASA programs are pressed into serving children who appear before the court in guardianship and domestic custody cases is because a lot of these cases should have been adjudicated as abuse and neglect in the first place," explains Janet Ward, National CASA program specialist for the Midwest region, "Instead, they are coming into the family court in droves."

The Myth that Hurts Children and Families

According to many relative caregivers, the most painful barrier they encounter is not the lack of services and financial supports. It is the antiquated notion that the "apple doesn't fall far from the tree"—the misguided assumption among some social workers, lawyers and judges that if the child's parent aren't able to raise the child, the rest of the family must be equally dysfunctional. Experts who work most closely with caregivers and the children they are raising contend that shattering this myth is the first step in getting these families the community understanding and support they need most. "I've lost count of how many times I have seen grandparents beat themselves up over what they did wrong. A grandmother can have three other adult children who turned out great, but she still thinks it's her fault," says Carol Boyer, Director of Generations Together, a Delaware support program. "Every parent knows that sometimes there are influences beyond even their control."

Caregivers say that these common misperceptions are not only hurtful to them, they unfairly brand the child they are raising. "We say that the apple may not fall far from the tree, but we're not responsible for how far it rolls," says Brigitte Castellano, Executive Director of the National Committee of Grandparents for Children's Rights, a national advocacy organization. "Not only are we advocating for the child, but we also have to fight the prejudice against us."

Relative Care as a Source of Stable Placements for Children

Despite its critics, most agency leaders and expert practitioners agree that an appropriate placement with caring relatives can often provide a loving, familiar and stable setting for a child at-risk. "Grandparents are usually the first line of defense from abuse and neglect," says the National Committee's Castellano. "When a parent can no longer care for their children, why should those children lose their entire family?" Placing a child with caring family members also has other advantages for the child, such as helping to preserve a child's racial and ethnic identity, and sometimes their ability to stay in a familiar and supportive neighborhood. "Grandparents and other relatives are also more likely to keep siblings together," adds Kikora Dorsey of Casey Family Programs in Seattle, a fundamental consideration that is often overlooked when agency placements are made.

The most important reason to place the child with qualified relatives, however, is also the most obvious: they already know and love the child. "Grandparents know the history of the child and the family," says Boyer, "They know the child personally and intimately. And the child knows them." Preserving family connections is especially important in cases involving older children. Explains Karen Worthington, Director of the Barton Law & Policy Clinic at Emory University School of Law, "the adolescent years are the time when many children most need that sense of belonging. Family members can often provide that support in ways others may not be able to." Casey Family Program's Dorsey agrees. "Raising adolescents in a changing world can be challenging for anybody, but especially so for grandparents and other relatives who may not be prepared to deal with a teenager. It's even more complicated if the child has special needs and these needs have not been met as the child grows."

Children, Caregivers and the Courts

While grandparents and other relatives may be certain of their love and commitment to a child, they are much less sure of their relationship with child welfare agencies and the courts. Even when children are placed with relatives through a child welfare agency, caregivers' roles in subsequent dependency proceedings are poorly defined. While federal law now requires that foster parents and relatives caring for a child in foster care must be given notice of and an opportunity to be heard in any hearings or reviews involving the child, some courts interpret this provision narrowly or overlook it altogether. "In many states, there is no uniform procedure for gathering information from caregivers," explains Cecilia Fiermonte, an attorney with the American Bar Association's Center for Children and the Law. "Judges might put a written report in the file, but not consider it as evidence. They may not ask the caregivers if they have anything to say, so the relatives end up missing their opportunity to speak at all."

There are additional complications when a caregiver tries to navigate the judicial system without counsel. "Generally, caregivers are clueless about the court system and what rights they may have," explains Carol Boyer. "They don't understand why parents' interests are represented by an attorney and they're not given counsel even though they are the ones raising the child." Caregivers who decide that they might be better off hiring their own lawyers often find themselves in a legal Catch-22, earning too much to qualify for the limited number of free legal services and too little to afford the high costs of a private attorney.

In addition to feeling "pitted" against the parents of the children in adversarial court proceedings, relatives often report feeling unfairly judged by agency representatives and court personnel. Sometimes dismissed as ‘intrusive' or ‘meddlesome,' grandparents are afraid that if they speak up in court, the agency or judge might retaliate against them and take away the child. The situation can be worse for relatives who become involved in an abuse and neglect case late because they had not even been told that the child had been placed in foster care. "Often kin are out of the loop or waiting on the sidelines hoping that the child's parents will get their acts together," says Barbara Kates, director of Family Connections, a grandparent outreach organization in Bangor, Maine. "Just because relatives don't participate in the court process immediately doesn't mean they are not committed to the child. Sometimes they just don't know where or how to start."

Relative Caregivers as a Resource for CASA Volunteers

Although some courts may still be struggling to define the appropriate role of extended family members in abuse and neglect proceedings, grandparents and other relatives can still be an invaluable resource for CASA volunteers helping a judge to determine what is best for a child. First and foremost, relative caregivers can be a source of helpful information. "It's important for CASA volunteers to recognize family members as vital allies in the process of developing a permanent placement for the child," says Atlanta Legal Aid's Sherry Neal. "Even when a family placement doesn't turn out to be the best one, relatives can still give the court important information on the child's background, medical history—even her likes and dislikes. They might also be able to recommend alternative placements with family friends and help to maintain important family connections for children regardless of where they end up."

The information and insight family members can provide are especially important for CASA volunteers who have been tasked with especially difficult cases. "Because there are often more cases than volunteers, we sometimes get the cases that need the most attention," says Jennifer Miller, a child welfare policy expert and CASA volunteer in Providence, Rhode Island. "For kids living in shelters or group homes, children dealing with seriously addicted parents, or those in large sibling groups, we need to be asking how relatives can help—even if they are not a possible placement." Miller also points out that volunteers can also play a key role in assuring that children are placed and remain in safe and stable homes. "Family is vital, but we have to stop the practice of assuming that kids are automatically O.K. just because they are with grandparents or other relatives. The advantage of being a CASA (volunteer) is that we get to look at each case on an individual basis."

CASA Volunteers as Liaisons for Children and Families

Just as family members can deepen a CASA volunteer's understanding of a child's needs, volunteers can find new ways to support children as a "front-line" resource for caregiver families. When a child first enters the system, they can help overworked agency staff to identify and build strong relationships with grandparents and other relatives who might be willing able to provide temporary care for the child or ongoing emotional support to the child or the parents. By visiting frequently with their clients and their caregivers, CASA volunteers can also develop a relationship of trust and, where appropriate, act as liaison with agency personnel to ensure that children are getting the full range of foster care services and supports.

In addition to providing family members with information on available public benefits and support groups, CASA volunteers can also help relative caregivers learn to manage and monitor children's safe, consistent visitation with their birth parents. In situations where a child can be safely reunified with his or her birth parents, CASA volunteers can encourage relative caregivers to play a positive role in the child's return home. In cases where a child is unable to return home, CASA volunteers can help social workers and court personnel move the permanency process forward through adoption or guardianship. Finally, volunteers can help to ensure that grandparents and other relatives have an opportunity to share their perspectives on the child with the court and agency personnel in dependency hearings and related reviews.

In seeking out the information that only grandparents and other relatives can provide and by supporting caregivers who are raising almost one-third of the children in foster care, CASA volunteers can be an invaluable resource for agency and court decision makers and, most importantly, for the children they represent. "While caregivers carry the past, they can also help envision a better future for children. They are the bridge that many children stand on," says Carol Boyer. "If we really want to help kids, we need to do a better job of recognizing that."