Perspective: Sending in the red team

FT. LEAVENWORTH, KAN. — While the Bush administration is reworking its overall strategy in Iraq, military leaders in Baghdad are searching for new ways to improve the decisions and choices they make closer to the ground.

The U.S. military has sent to Iraq a five-person team of dedicated skeptics, known in military jargon as a "red team." In a war known for its missteps and unanticipated results, the team will be assigned to review, and question, military operations. It will attempt to predict how enemies will react to various missions and what the unintended consequences might be.

Such teams have been used on an ad-hoc basis to critique specific battle plans. But this team is the first to work full time as devil's advocates, and is the first headed by officers trained as designated skeptics by Ft. Leavenworth's University of Foreign Military and Cultural Studies.

Red teams try to predict how the enemy, known as "red" in military-speak, will react to an American operation.

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