Mattis steers away from body counts as measure of battlefield effectiveness

TEL AVIV — The specter of body counts still haunts the U.S. military more than 50 years after they became a staple of the 5 o’clock Follies in the Vietnam War.

The issue gained currency again after the Pentagon announced April 14 that it had dropped one of the most powerful conventional munitions in its arsenal, the “Mother of All Bombs,” a 21,000-pound leviathan, on a complex of caves used by Islamic State (ISIS) fighters in Afghanistan.

Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, traveling with reporters in the Middle East, on Thursday addressed the use of the bomb, its strategic effects and the hullabaloo it generated in the news media following its use.

But not how many ISIS fighters it had killed.

“For many years we have not been calculating the results of warfare by simply quantifying the number of enemy killed,” Mattis said. “You all know of the corrosive effect of that sort of metric back in the Vietnam War. It’s something that has stayed with us all these years.

“You don’t want to start calculating things, as far as what matters, in the crude terms of battle casualties.”

The 5 o’clock Follies refers to the discredited daily practice of U.S. officials in Saigon to boast of the number of the enemy killed as a measure of effectiveness.

Today, the U.S. military does, in fact, keep close tabs on the number of ISIS fighters it kills, albeit far more quietly. Late last year, top commanders said the U.S.-led bombing campaign had killed more than 50,000 militants since the U.S.-led air war began in 2014. The number of dead has been regularly briefed to the highest levels of the Pentagon, according senior Defense officials.

Lt. Gen. Sean McFarland, who had been the lead commander of the counter-ISIS fight until mid-2016, has said the enemy killed-in-action measure, while imperfect, did reflect progress. More dead ISIS fighters meant the militants couldn’t field as effective a force, which was shown, too, in the amount of turf taken back from them.

Watch video of the MOAB in Afghanistan:

Drone footage shows MOAB drop in Afghanistan

If there are fewer ISIS fighters today, they’re also showing up in more places than Iraq and Syria. Hence the use of the Massive Ordnance Air Blast, the MOAB, whose explosive power reached deep into a cave-and-tunnel complex in the rugged terrain of Afghanistan.

In the case of the MOAB strike, the military has the ability to determine its effects with spy plane and satellites. Afghan troops reported nearly 100 fighters died in the blast. But Mattis said there was no need to send U.S. ground forces in for a closer look.

“Frankly digging into tunnels to count dead bodies is probably not a good use of our troops’ time when they’re chasing down the enemy that’s still capable,” Mattis said.

The Pentagon is very much aware of the message sent by using such a bomb, Mattis said. And he has delegated authority to his commanders to use the force they deem necessary without tying their hands.

Army Gen. John Nicholson, the top commander in Afghanistan who ordered the strike, and others with similar responsibilities understand well how such attacks send messages around the world instantly and that echo for days.

“I have no doubt that they do,” Mattis said. “And if they didn’t, I’d remove them.”

Read more:

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New rules allow more civilian casualties in air war against ISIL

Pentagon acknowledges riskier airstrikes, more civilian casualties