At Walter Reed, a New Approach
Combat Veterans Assigned to Aid Recoveries
By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 31, 2007; A01

It was the sort of message that sergeants have delivered to soldiers since time immemorial: Formations would be held three days a week at 7:30 a.m., and attendance was mandatory. "NO EXCEPTIONS!" screamed the e-mail, sent this month by a staff sergeant to his squad.

"I am sick and tired of chasing everyone around when it should be simple," the message read. "This [is] the United States Army NOT the Salvation Army."

Normally, no one in the Army would blink. But the e-mail recipients were stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, where many are missing limbs, coping with post-traumatic stress disorder or suffering from brain injuries. The backlash was swift. After fielding a complaint from a soldier's mother, a commanding officer ordered the sergeant to apologize.

After revelations this year of squalid living conditions and bureaucratic nightmares at Walter Reed, the Army took the unusual step of creating the Warrior Transition Brigade. It brings in combat-seasoned officers and sergeants to assist the facility's nearly 700 outpatients -- tracking their recovery, ensuring that their appointments are kept and watching out for their morale.

But the effort to help wounded soldiers navigate the medical bureaucracy has also produced a culture clash, with many battle-hardened noncommissioned officers having difficulty adapting to Walter Reed's civilian atmosphere. As some injured troops and their families publicly voice complaints, the brigade leaders face a dilemma: Should they treat the recovering troops as patients first and foremost, or as soldiers?

Staff Sgt. John Guna, 38, received only three weeks' notice that he was being sent to Washington to oversee wounded soldiers. "When they first told me I was going to Walter Reed, I said, 'Did they put a tank out there at the front gate?' " recalled Guna, a tanker and veteran of three tours in Iraq.

Brig. Gen. Michael S. Tucker, the deputy commanding general at Walter Reed, told reporters yesterday that the brigade proves the Army's commitment to fixing problems at the hospital. "When the Army is serious about something, it puts boots on the ground," he said.

To lead the brigade, senior Army officials tapped Col. Terrence McKenrick, a highly regarded Army Ranger whose previous assignment was at the Joint Operations Center for Multi-National Corps-Iraq. Combat arms officers and noncommissioned officers with proven records were chosen from infantry and armor units -- the core of the Army's fighting machine. Drill sergeants also joined the brigade.

"They understand the dynamics of motivating people under the most demanding of conditions," McKenrick said. "The greatest challenge is how to inspire these warriors and bring them out of their despair."

The brigade has replaced Walter Reed's much-maligned Medical Hold Company, in which platoon sergeants -- many of them former patients or medics and other medical command soldiers -- were each responsible for an average of 55 outpatients, and often more than 100. Platoon sergeants operated with little support and found it impossible to track so many patients with serious physical and emotional wounds.

"How could we expect a platoon sergeant to handle that?" McKenrick asked. "It makes me realize how short we came up as an Army."

In the new brigade, the companies are divided into three platoons, which are in turn broken down into three squads, with each squad leader overseeing about a dozen soldier-patients. Outpatients interviewed said that under this new structure, problems can be detected and responded to more quickly.

"The squad leader is kind of a battle buddy," Guna said. "Making them feel like they're a soldier -- that's what a lot of it is."

Guna said that combat veterans are better able to establish rapport with outpatients. "That's one good thing the Army did, bringing in combat vets," Guna added. "You can say, 'Where'd you get blown up at?' And they'll tell you and you can say, 'Oh, I got hit there myself.' "

But the squads have little of the cohesion typical of a small Army unit. Apart from the thrice-weekly formations -- which many soldiers miss because of medical appointments or other conflicts -- outpatients in a squad have little interaction. Their medical treatment, living quarters and meals are usually separate.

Guna said that some recovering soldiers and their families "like being stars" and try to take advantage of their status.

The wife of one soldier "cussed me out on the phone," Guna said, when he told her they were not entitled to keep a room at the guest lodge that they were not regularly occupying. Guna said he did not respond in kind.

Commanders have told him to "be happy" that he is no longer under enemy fire, Guna said. He added, however, that "sometimes, I'd rather be shot at."

A few recovering soldiers have little interest in cooperating with their squad leaders, McKenrick said. "Some are noncompliant, deliberately missing appointments," he said. "Some of that is based on despair of the condition they're in."

The battle-tested soldiers of the brigade cadre have encountered systemic problems beyond their ability to address. "We've fixed things," said Capt. Steven Gventer, a company commander in the brigade and veteran of intense street fighting in Sadr City. "Where we can't fix the problem is where we're dealing with boards and doctors. We can identify problems, but can't fix them."

Some in the brigade are critical of the hospital's civilian workforce, which they view as stubborn and resistant to change. "It is going slow," Guna said. "We're bumping heads with the hospital. They don't want to see us succeed, because that would mean they were wrong."

But some patients argue that the brigade is not addressing the underlying problems in the military medical bureaucracy. "To me, it's cosmetic stuff," said Army Maj. Lionel Walton, who has been treated at Walter Reed since January 2005.

The frustration and anger felt by many of those being treated at Walter Reed boiled over at a town hall meeting with the full brigade at 8 a.m. one day last week in the hospital gymnasium.

The bleachers were packed with soldiers bearing evidence of terrible wounds. Many used canes or crutches. Others wore prostheses and some had eye patches or disfigured faces.

Maj. Gen. Eric B. Schoomaker, Walter Reed's commander, took the floor. "This is the first brigade of its kind," he told the soldiers. "This concept is sweeping across the Army, in how we care for warriors. . . . We acknowledge that this is a work in progress."

When Schoomaker asked for comments, the complaints spilled out: Evelyn Williams, the mother of a wounded soldier, described how he had been given discharge papers to sign with no explanation of his options. Two soldiers complained that an orthopedic surgeon had been repeatedly "abusive and demeaning" to patients and should be fired -- a demand that prompted cheers from the bleachers.

People were using the hospital's guest lodge as a party house, someone said, and soldiers who had suffered brain trauma were drinking alcohol. Every soldier's room at Abrams Hall, where many outpatients are housed, had been outfitted with a plasma TV and a computer -- but many phones were not working, Sgt. Charles Eggleston complained.

Schoomaker and McKenrick addressed the complaints as best they could, but the answers did not satisfy all in the audience.

"It breaks my heart," Williams responded. "I'm standing here and hearing a bunch of hogwash."

McKenrick asked for patience. "We are just beginning, and have a lot of changes to make. . . . There isn't anyone here that's against you."

Iraqi Parliament Adjourns for August
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Jul 30, 12:41 PM (ET)

By KIM GAMEL

(AP) An Iraqi soldier passes the wreckage of a minibus that exploded at a busy transit point in the...
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BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's parliament adjourned Monday for an August recess without receiving from the government a series of U.S.-backed draft laws designed to promote national unity and stem support for the Sunni-led insurgency.
Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani closed the three-hour session without a quorum present and declared it would not resume work until Sept. 4.
Legislators blamed the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki for failing to construct compromise versions of the key pieces of legislation such as the so-called oil law, intended to ensure a fair distribution of Iraq's considerable oil wealth.
"We were supposed to discuss important issues in the month of July, but we did not. Sitting in August is unconstitutional and even if we sit next month, that's no guarantee that the important business will be done," said Mahmoud Othman, a prominent Kurdish lawmaker.

(AP) Iraqi soldiers prepare to haul a car that was destroyed when a minibus exploded at a busy transit...
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"There are Iraqi-Iraqi and Iraqi-American differences that have not been resolved. The government throws the ball in our court, but we say that it is in the government's court and that of the politicians. They sent us nothing," he said.
The U.S. military said three soldiers had been killed in fighting in Anbar province west of Baghdad on Thursday. At least 3,651 members of the U.S. military have died since the start of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
Also Monday, a minibus exploded in a central Baghdad market district, killing at least six people - a brutal reminder of the dangers facing Iraqis who celebrated by the tens of thousands Sunday night after their national team won the prestigious Asian Cup soccer tournament.
Black smoke rose into the air after the blast struck a transit point near Tayaran Square at about 1 p.m., damaging several nearby cars and kiosks selling clothes, fruit and juice, police and hospital officials said. The minibus was one of several waiting for passengers heading to predominantly Shiite areas in eastern Baghdad.
At least 31 people were wounded in addition to the six killed, according to the officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to release the information.

(AP) Iraqi soldiers celebrate in the streets of Basra, 550 kilometers (340 miles) southeast of Baghdad,...
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The bombing came hours after the expiration of a vehicle ban that had been imposed in the capital and several other cities on Sunday ahead of Iraq's soccer final against Saudi Arabia in the Asian Cup. Iraq won the championship 1-0, and tens of thousands of Iraqis poured into the streets for largely peaceful celebrations as fans welcomed the victory as a show of pride and unity.
Chants of "Long live Iraq" and "Baghdad is victorious" rang out across the country. Some of the revelers - mostly men - took their shirts off to display the red, white and black colors of the Iraqi flag painted on their chests.
Within seconds of the final whistle, celebratory gunfire echoed across Baghdad and elsewhere despite a government ban and the threat of arrest by authorities. Authorities said that in Baghdad alone, at least five people were killed and nearly 30 wounded in the shooting that broke out after the game.
There were no reports of bombings such as those that killed at least 50 and wounded dozens in Baghdad during celebrations of Iraq's semifinal win over South Korea on Wednesday. But bombings, shootings and mortar attacks striking other targets killed at least 58 people nationwide.
About two dozen masked gunmen also bombed a Shiite shrine that had a reputation for healing powers in a volatile mainly Sunni area north of Baghdad late Sunday, police said. The attack flattened the building and destroyed the shrine holding the remains of a revered medieval Shiite saint Jamaluddin.

(AP) Iraqi soldiers and civilians celebrate in the streets of Basra, 550 kilometers (340 miles)...
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Witnesses said it followed warnings by extremists in the area that the mosque would be targeted if faithful continued to bring their sick to the building to be cured.
"The gunmen were telling us that this was polytheism and they would blow it up if we allow people to bring their sick people to that place," said one of the shrine's guardians, Mohammed al-Magdami. The shrine was guarded by Sunnis and visited by followers of both Islamic sects, residents said.
The gunmen arrived in four vehicles and told people living nearby to leave their houses to avoid being hurt, and no casualties were reported.
Scattered violence also was reported elsewhere, including a roadside bomb that killed two Iraqi soldiers and wounded three in a predominantly Sunni area in northwestern Baghdad and a mortar barrage against a market south of Baghdad that killed one civilian and wounded three others.
Northeast of the capital, dozens of suspected Sunni insurgents attacked a Sunni village near Baqouba, killing 20 civilians and kidnapping others for not cooperating with them, a local police official said, declining to be identified because he feared becoming a target himself. The attack began late Sunday and lasted through Monday morning, the officer said. The report could not be independently confirmed.

Looking for victory in all the wrong places
Dueling headlines last week in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal got me thinking about how we should realistically define victory in this long war against radical extremism. Most people think it’s killing terrorists and incapacitating their networks, but to me it’s less about draining the swamp than about filling that space with something better. The only exit strategy I recognize is local job creation.

On July 18, the Times led with “Bush Advisers See a Failed Strategy Against Al-Qaida.” Here’s why I don’t find that headline particularly surprising or disheartening.

=======================================================

Barnett: Looking for victory in all the wrong places

By Thomas P.M. Barnett
Sunday, July 29, 2007

Dueling headlines last week in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal got me thinking about how we should realistically define victory in this long war against radical extremism. Most people think it’s killing terrorists and incapacitating their networks, but to me it’s less about draining the swamp than about filling that space with something better. The only exit strategy I recognize is local job creation.

On July 18, the Times led with “Bush Advisers See a Failed Strategy Against Al-Qaida.” Here’s why I don’t find that headline particularly surprising or disheartening.

In operational terms, the entire history of al-Qaida, which emerged from Islamic resistance to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, has been one of moving from one center of gravity to the next. Not welcome in Saudi Arabia following the Soviet withdrawal, al-Qaida was effectively stood up in its modern form in Sudan in the mid-1990s.

Driven out by the Sudanese government in 1996, al-Qaida returned to Afghanistan, later to be evicted by the U.S.-led invasion following 9/11. To no one’s surprise, al-Qaida next slipped into Pakistan’s ungoverned northwest tribal areas, reconstituting itself there along with the ousted Taliban.

Success or failure?

If al-Qaida resorts to hiding in one of the most off-grid locations on the planet, I would call it a success. If Web-enabled al-Qaida can effectively coordinate terrorist attacks in the West from there, then we’re back to the pre-9/11 standoff.

That means America and the world retain a high incentive to continue tightening up security practices, but since this is highly desirable for all sorts of reasons relating to globalization’s rapid expansion, al-Qaida’s historical function here is both useful and invariable: its continued efforts simply force more resiliency from us.

Then again, so do tainted Chinese products, avian flu and global warming. Al-Qaida may grab headlines occasionally, but in global terms, its impact rarely rises above the white noise generated by globalization’s skyrocketing transaction rate and its associated mishaps.

Al-Qaida clearly profits from Iraq’s dissolution, but quite frankly, al-Qaida will always have some cause celebre. As a fundamentalist movement combating globalization’s creeping embrace of its sacred places, it will always have infidels worth driving out. Nothing short of complete civilizational apartheid satisfies al-Qaida’s agenda, and even that would simply expand its geographic ambition.

So if al-Qaida’s resurgence is hardly remarkable and its ideological profiteering in Iraq is simply a function of President Bush’s “big bang” strategy, then neither outcome adds up to a loss in this long war, even as neither points out the path to victory.

As America’s combat role in Iraq diminishes, with most remaining troops pulled back to Kuwait and Kurdistan, our definition of progress must inevitably broaden beyond simply killing weeds to growing some lawn. As the guy who cuts my grass likes to say, you can’t do both at the same time.

Now we get to the Journal’s headline from July 19: “Boom in Investment Powers Mideast Growth: Despite Wars, Capital Pours Across Borders.” Key statistic: foreign direct investment flows to the Middle East and North Africa have quadrupled since 2000.

Thanks to Asia’s growing energy thirst, higher oil prices provide the initial trigger, but what’s truly important this time around is that the region’s oil-rich economies are choosing to invest in energy-poor neighbors in desperate need of outside capital, like Morocco and Egypt. Instead of governments leading the way, this time its private investors. Instead of white elephants, this time we’re seeing bold forays into all sorts of infrastructure and networks that link this region more effectively to the global economy.

For now, it remains primarily the elites who benefit, with the big question being how much of this expanded economic opportunity in coming years makes its way into the hands of the masses, for there lies the youth bulge that Arab governments must manage lest idle hands be seduced by radical ideologies.

My point is this: In security terms, it’s always going to feel like we’re losing this war or — at best — achieving an operational stalemate. The real victory won’t come on any battlefield but rather in boardrooms.

In the end, we can’t kill bad guys faster than our enemies can grow them. Instead, we must offer them a more attractive recruitment package.

Thomas P.M. Barnett is a distinguished strategist at the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies and the senior managing director of Enterra Solutions LLC. Contact him at tom@thomaspmbarnett.com.

July 30, 2007
Gates Plans His Leave Amid Great Change

By JOHN MARKOFF
REDMOND, Wash., July 27 — Microsoft is beset with competition from all sides, unlike any it has seen in decades, and Bill Gates, who co-founded the company 32 years ago, still intends to step away next year as planned.

But so far, Mr. Gates, Microsoft’s 51-year-old chairman, shows no sign of fading away.

One year into a planned two-year transition, there are few visible cues that Mr. Gates is ready to leave the world’s technology stage to devote his energies principally to the $33 billion foundation he established seven years ago with his wife.

Indeed at the company’s annual financial meeting last week Mr. Gates spoke first, outlining a decade-long agenda, not a mere 12-month outlook.

He described a world in which the widespread availability of broadband networks would reshape computing, giving rise to what he said would be “natural user interfaces” like pen, voice and touch, replacing many functions of keyboards and mice.

Mr. Gates has stayed deeply engaged in the company’s technology strategy. He still frequently participates in high-level strategy planning sessions with Microsoft’s closest partners, like Intel, according to executives who have attended the meetings.

During a wide-ranging interview last week exploring his diminished role at Microsoft, the company’s challenge and its competitors, Mr. Gates insisted that he really has begun stepping back.

“I am in a lucky situation of having way more things that seem interesting to do and very exciting and important, and working with smart people, and highly impactful, way more than a 24-hour day will fit,” Mr. Gates said. To be sure, there is widespread skepticism in the industry about the possibility of Mr. Gates genuinely disengaging. Microsoft’s dominance is being challenged as never before by Google in particular, and Wall Street refuses to believe the company will regain its edge. The company’s stock has largely remained flat since the end of the dot-com era.

“It’s very hard for someone at his age, who has built a company with that much success and with continuing challenges to really walk away,” said David B. Yoffie, a professor at Harvard’s business school. “He will never be a titular leader.”

As he spoke in his office, Mr. Gates was joined by the two Microsoft executives, both veteran technologists, who are succeeding him. Craig Mundie, the chief research and strategy officer, and Ray Ozzie, chief software architect, agreed with Mr. Gates that despite significant industry challenges from all directions, Microsoft is at a perfect historic juncture for Mr. Gates’s departure and the first stage of his withdrawal from Microsoft has been reasonably seamless.

“The weaning process inside the company is inevitable,” said Mr. Mundie, a computer scientist who began his career developing minicomputers and supercomputers before joining Microsoft in 1992.

The greatest danger, according to all three executives, would be if Mr. Gates continues to make decisions while not staying deeply involved. He will remain chairman.

“It can’t be a situation where he’s expected to suddenly, magically come up to speed,” said Mr. Ozzie, a software designer who developed a software collaboration tool called Notes for Lotus and then started Groove Networks, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2005. “You know, did you see the 20 announcements last week that Google did, Yahoo did, Cisco did?”

For his part, Mr. Gates said he planned to remain deeply involved in a few areas indefinitely.

“Other than board meetings, there’s not much in terms of regular meetings,” he said. “It’s much more sitting down a couple hours a month with Craig, sitting down a couple of hours a month with Ray.”

On Thursday, Steven A. Ballmer, who took over the chief executive role from Mr. Gates seven years ago, said the company’s overall performance had never been stronger. Microsoft, he noted, has doubled its revenue and almost doubled its profits in the half decade that he has been at the helm. Despite that growth, the stock price has remained vexingly flat in the period.

Although smooth leadership transitions are infrequent among high tech firms, it appears that Mr. Gates has had the freedom to begin stepping away gracefully because Mr. Ballmer has been largely successful in shouldering the burden of running Microsoft.

Mr. Gates no longer attends senior leadership team meetings, and earlier this month he made what company executives described as a farewell appearance at the annual Microsoft sales force meeting in Orlando, Fla. When Mr. Gates finished his speech to the thousands of sales people at the meeting, they gave him a five-minute standing ovation, underscoring the bond the company still retains with its co-founder, according to a person who attended the event.

But as he cedes Microsoft’s technology leadership to Mr. Mundie and Mr. Ozzie, the company is struggling with a radical transition in the computer industry. Six months ago, Microsoft shipped its long-delayed Windows Vista operating system, and there is widespread belief within the industry that the era of such unwieldy and vast software development projects is coming to an end.

Ubiquitous broadband networks and high speed wireless networks have for the first time given rise to meaningful alternatives to bulky and costly personal computers. In their place are a proliferating collection of smart connected devices that are tied together by a vast array of Internet-based information services based in centralized data centers.

The industry is rushing to “software as a service” models ranging from Salesforce.com, a San Francisco company that sells business contact software delivered via Web browsers, to Apple’s iPhone, which is designed as a classic “thin client,” a computer that requires the Internet for many of its capabilities.

It is a vision that Microsoft itself has at least partially embraced. Microsoft, in contrast, is calling its strategy “software plus services,” an approach that is intended to protect the company’s existing installed base.

During the interview, all three executives indicated that Microsoft is now moving quickly to offer new Internet services for personal computer users. Centralized data storage will make it possible for PC users to gain access to most or all of their information from all of the different types of computers they use, whether they are desktops, laptops or smartphones, and wherever they are located.

During the transition, Mr. Gates has also stayed closely involved in shaping Microsoft’s strategy in the search market where it has been assiduously attempting to catch Google and Yahoo.

“We made all the structural changes we were going to make, and we rode in tandem last year,” said Mr. Mundie. “In the last few months Bill has transitioned to what I start to think of as special project mode.”

If he is stepping away from Microsoft, Mr. Gates has shed none of his trademark combativeness. He rejected the Silicon Valley view that Microsoft has begun to exhibit the same sclerotic signs of middle age that I.B.M. did when it dominated the computer industry, but failed to respond effectively to the challenge of the personal computer.

I.B.M. is no longer at the center of the computer industry, he asserted, for two reasons. First, the industry is now centered on personal computing. “As much as I.B.M. created the I.B.M. PC, it was never their culture, their excellence,” he said. “Their skill sets were never about personal computing.”

Second, the center of gravity in the computer industry has dramatically shifted toward software, he said. “Why do you like your iPod, your iPhone, your Xbox 360, your Google Search?” he said. “The real magic sauce is not the parts that we buy for the Xbox, or the parts that Apple buys for iPhones, it’s the software that goes into it.”

During the interview Mr. Gates rejected the notion that Google could become a successful competitor in the smartphone software market, where Microsoft has about 10 percent market share. The Silicon valley search engine provider has been widely reported to be preparing to enter the cellphone market with its own software and a host of services springing from that software.

Microsoft’s chairman said it was unlikely that Google would be able to make inroads into the Microsoft’s share of market for mobile phone software.

“How many products, of all the Google products that have been introduced, how many of them are profit-making products?” he asked. “They’ve introduced about 30 different products; they have one profit-making product. So, you’re now making a prediction without ever seeing the software that they’re going to have the world’s best phone and it’s going to be free?”

Again, the ability to create compelling software will determine the winners. “The phone is becoming way more software intensive,” he said. “And to be able to say that there’s some challenge for us in the phone market when its becoming software intensive, I don’t see that.”

The new, less central role for Mr. Gates was first formulated more than a year ago at a June 2006 meeting in which the three men worked out how they would divide responsibilities for guiding the technology direction of the $51 billion company, according to Mr. Ozzie, who was a longtime rival of Mr. Gates at companies like Lotus and I.B.M. before joining Microsoft two years ago.

They decided at that meeting that Mr. Mundie and Mr. Ozzie would divide Mr. Gates’s role at the company along three axes. Along one of these lines, Mr. Mundie, who has been described as Microsoft’s “secretary of state” and who is deeply involved in federal government and international policy issues, would take a more public-facing role, while Mr. Ozzie would focus more closely on internal company matters.

In another, Mr. Mundie has tackled the company’s long-range strategic decisions, while Mr. Ozzie has taken over the near-term challenges of weaving together the product development issues. Finally, Mr. Mundie has taken responsibility for software that sits closer to the computer hardware, like the Windows operating system, while Mr. Ozzie has shaped Microsoft’s response to the growing challenge of network software.

“There’s been a very natural shift in the past year where I will engage with a particular software team and Bill will disengage,” said Mr. Ozzie. Mr. Gates insists that his new world of philanthropy will be just as compelling as software has been. “I’ll have also malaria vaccine or tuberculosis vaccine or curriculum in American high schools, which are also things that, at least the way my mind works, I sit there and say, ‘Oh, God! This is so important; this is so solvable,’ ” he said, “You’ve just got to get the guy who understands this, and this new technology will bring these things together.”

July 28, 2007
U.S. Set to Offer Huge Arms Deal to Saudi Arabia

By DAVID S. CLOUD
WASHINGTON, July 27 — The Bush administration is preparing to ask Congress to approve an arms sale package for Saudi Arabia and its neighbors that is expected to eventually total $20 billion at a time when some United States officials contend that the Saudis are playing a counterproductive role in Iraq.

The proposed package of advanced weaponry for Saudi Arabia, which includes advanced satellite-guided bombs, upgrades to its fighters and new naval vessels, has made Israel and some of its supporters in Congress nervous. Senior officials who described the package on Friday said they believed that the administration had resolved those concerns, in part by promising Israel $30.4 billion in military aid over the next decade, a significant increase over what Israel has received in the past 10 years.

But administration officials remained concerned that the size of the package and the advanced weaponry it contains, as well as broader concerns about Saudi Arabia’s role in Iraq, could prompt Saudi critics in Congress to oppose the package when Congress is formally notified about the deal this fall.

In talks about the package, the administration has not sought specific assurances from Saudi Arabia that it would be more supportive of the American effort in Iraq as a condition of receiving the arms package, the officials said.

The officials said the plan to bolster the militaries of Persian Gulf countries is part of an American strategy to contain the growing power of Iran in the region and to demonstrate that, no matter what happens in Iraq, Washington remains committed to its longtime Arab allies. Officials from the State Department and the Pentagon agreed to outline the terms of the deal after some details emerged from closed briefings this week on Capitol Hill.

The officials said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who are to make a joint visit to Saudi Arabia next week, still intended to use the trip to press the Saudis to do more to help Iraq’s Shiite-dominated government.

“The role of the Sunni Arab neighbors is to send a positive, affirmative message to moderates in Iraq in government that the neighbors are with you,” a senior State Department official told reporters in a conference call on Friday. More specifically, the official said, the United States wants the gulf states to make clear to Sunnis engaged in violence in Iraq that such actions are “killing your future.”

In addition to promising an increase in American military aid to Israel, the Pentagon is seeking to ease Israel’s concerns over the proposed weapons sales to Saudi Arabia by asking the Saudis to accept restrictions on the range, size and location of the satellite-guided bombs, including a commitment not to store the weapons at air bases close to Israeli territory, the officials said.

The package and the possible steps to allay Israel’s concerns were described to Congress this week, in an effort by the administration to test the reaction on Capitol Hill before entering into final negotiations on the package with Saudi officials. The Saudis had requested that Congress be told about the planned sale, the officials said, in an effort to avoid the kind of bruising fight on Capitol Hill that occurred in the 1980s over proposed arms sales to the kingdom.

In his visit with King Abdullah and other Saudi officials next week, Mr. Gates plans to describe “what the administration is willing to go forward with” in the arms package and “what we would recommend to the Hill and others,” according to a senior Pentagon official, who conducted a background briefing on the upcoming trip with reporters on Friday.

The official added that Mr. Gates would also reassure the Saudis that “regardless of what happens in the near term in Iraq that our commitment in the region remains firm, remains steadfast and that, in fact, we are looking to enhance and develop it.”

The $20 billion price tag on the package is more than double what officials originally estimated when details became public this spring. Even the higher figure is a rough estimate that could fluctuate depending on the final package, which would be carried out over a number of years, officials said.

Worried about the impression that the United States was starting an arms race in the region, State and Defense Department officials stressed that the arms deal was being proposed largely in response to improvements in Iran’s military capabilities and to counter the threat posed by its nuclear program, which the Bush administration contends is aimed at building nuclear weapons.

Along with Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates are likely to receive equipment and weaponry from the arms sales under consideration, officials said. In general, the United States is interested in upgrading the countries’ air and missile defense systems, improving their navies and making modest improvements in their air forces, administration officials said, though not all the packages would be the same.

Ms. Rice is expected to announce Monday that the administration will open formal discussions with each country about the proposed packages, in hopes of reaching agreements by the fall.

Along with the announcement of formal talks with Persian Gulf allies on the arms package, Ms. Rice is planning to outline the new agreement to provide military aid to Israel, as well as a similar accord with Egypt.

The $30.4 billion being promised to Israel is $9.1 billion more than Israel has received over the past decade, an increase of nearly 43 percent.

A senior administration official said the sizable increase was a result of Israel’s need to replace equipment expended in its war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer, as well as to maintain its advantage in advanced weaponry as other countries in the region modernize their forces.

In defending the proposed sale to Saudi Arabia and other gulf states, the officials noted that the Saudis and several of the other countries were in talks with suppliers other than the United States. If the packages offered to them by the United States are blocked or come with too many conditions, the officials said, the Persian Gulf countries could turn elsewhere for similar equipment, reducing American influence in the region.

The United States has made few, if any, sales of satellite-guided munitions to Arab countries in the past, though Israel has received them since the mid-1990s as part of a United States policy of ensuring that Israel has a military edge over its regional rivals.

Israeli officials have made specific requests aimed at eliminating concerns that satellite-guided bombs sold to the Saudis could be used against its territory, administration officials said.

Their major concern is not a full-scale Saudi attack, but the possibility that a rogue pilot armed with one of the bombs could attack on his own or that the Saudi government could one day be overthrown and the weapons could fall into the hands of a more radical regime, officials said.