Inside the Ring

Pace’s mail

Conservative commentator Ben Stein has said and written many laudatory things about America’s military. He lambasted Hollywood for not one mention of the troops during the Oscars broadcast.

But one column he wrote gained the special attention of a very important person — Marine Gen. Peter Pace, Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman. In fact, Gen. Pace liked the piece so much he e-mailed it to his regular address list, including Army Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq.

“I hesitate to forward e-mail but I think our service members should be aware of this,” he said, under the title, “Ben Stein speaks the truth.”

Mr. Stein wrote the column as an open letter to members of the armed forces. He compared a day in his life of running errands in Rancho Mirage, Calif., to their jobs of fighting the evil forces of al Qaeda.

“We are on our knees to you and we bless and pray for you every moment,” he writes. “You are everything to us, as we go through our little days, and you are in the prayers of the nation and of every decent man and woman on the planet. That’s who you are and what you mean. I hope you know that. Love, Ben Stein.”

McCaffrey’s back

Retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey returned to Iraq last month, his first visit in a year to assess the war for his colleagues at West Point. While some are still calling for more American troops, Gen. McCaffrey supports the commanders’ position that troops will likely come down, not go up.

Gen. McCaffrey worries, in a post-trip memo, that an increase in troops will leave the military unable to handle other trouble spots.

“In my judgment, [U.S. Central Command] must constrain the force level in Iraq or we risk damaging our ground combat capability, which we will need in the ongoing deterrence of threats from North Korea, Iran, Syria, China against Taiwan, Venezuela, Cuba and other potential flashpoints.”

The general, a highly decorated combat veteran in Vietnam, is increasingly worried about military-press relations. “There is rapidly growing animosity in our deployed military forces toward the U.S. media,” he writes.

He said in an interview that two things are at work: The soldiers hear top Bush administration officials complaining about press coverage of Iraq; and when they watch the news most of what they see are insurgency bombings, not progress that is being made.

Gen. McCaffrey’s report also touches on Iran. And his prediction is not reassuring to an administration determined to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons.

“The Iranian people have collectively decided to go nuclear,” he says. “The Chinese and Russians will not, in the end, support serious collective action against Iran. The Iranians will achieve their nuclear weapons purpose within five to 10 years.”

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