U.S. Military decimated by war in Iraq

A picture released by the US Marines shows a seaman looking back at an Iraqi village after sweeping through it during a mounted combat patrol near Al Asad base, west of Baghdad, June 15. The US Senate has unanimously approved a 517.7 billion dollar defense bill for fiscal year 2007 that includes 50 billion dollars in funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.(AFP/USMC/File)

I found a couple of stories here that really shows how badly the U.S. military is being decimated by the Bush administration's war in Iraq. I'm going to start with this first Yahoo News story, titled Wars force Army equipment costs to triple:

WASHINGTON - The annual cost of replacing, repairing and upgrading Army equipment in Iraq and Afghanistan is expected to more than triple next year to more than $17 billion, according to Army documents obtained by the Associated Press.

From 2002 to 2006, the Army spent an average of $4 billion a year in annual equipment costs. But as the war takes a harder toll on the military, that number is projected to balloon to more than $12 billion for the federal budget year that starts next Oct. 1, the documents show.

The $17 billion also includes an additional $5 billion in equipment expenses that the Army requested in previous years but has not yet been provided.

The latest costs include the transfer of more than 1,200 2 1/2-ton trucks, nearly 1,100 Humvees and $8.8 million in other equipment from the U.S. Army to the Iraqi security forces.

Army and Marine Corps leaders are expected to testify before Congress Tuesday and outline the growing costs of the war--with estimates that it will cost between $12 billion and $13 billion a year for equipment repairs, upgrades and replacements from now on.

The Marine Corps has said in recent testimony before Congress that it would need nearly $12 billion to replace and repair all the equipment worn out or lost to combat in the past four years. So far, the Marines have received $1.6 billion toward those costs to replace and repair the equipment.

The push for additional equipment funding comes after the House last week passed a $427 billion defense spending bill for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1, which includes $50 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. A separate $66 billion emergency funding bill for the two wars was approved earlier in the month.

War-related costs since 2001 are approaching half a trillion dollars.

In one sense, this doesn't surprise me, considering that both the Army and Marines are bogged down in a low-tech insurgency in Iraq. The insurgents in Iraq are striking American convoys and patrols with IEDs--thus taking out a truck or humvee, before melting back into Iraqi society where American forces cannot respond with their overwhelming firepower. In other words, the hit-and-run tactics of the insurgents are slowly grinding down American military strength, and wearing out American military equipment.

U.S. military personnel attend the scene after a suicide car bomber struck a gas station, killing at least three people and wounding 17, in the northern city of Kirkuk in Iraq Tuesday, June 27, 2006. The provincial council of Kirkuk ordered all fuel stations to be closed for the rest of the day to prevent more attacks. (AP Photo/Yahya Ahmed)

Then I find this little story off of Moxigrrrl's website. Moxigrrrl found an interesting story off of Military.com, titled Army Raises Maximum Enlistment Age:

ARLINGTON, Va.--For the second time in six months, the Army is raising the maximum enlistment age for new recruits, this time from 40 to 42, recruiting officials announced Wednesday.

The increase to age 42 applies to both men and women, and older applicants are eligible for the same enlistment bonuses and other incentives available to any other applicant, according to Julia Bobick, a spokesman for the Army's Recruiting Command at Fort Knox, Ky.

Adding an additional two years to the entry limit "expands the recruiting pool, provides motivated individuals an opportunity to serve, and strengthens the readiness of Army units," Bobick said.

Nevertheless, the Army is not expecting an influx of Americans older than 40 who will be eager to don a uniform full-time, she said.

Only the Army, which has been struggling with recruiting in the face of ongoing deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, decided to take advantage of the extension, with the age increase applying to the active Army, the Army Reserve and National Guard.

Although Army officials always intended to raise the bar to the 42-year limit set by Congress, they began by taking an "interim step" and increasing the limit just to age 40, Bobick said.

Even with the 40-year age limit in place, the Army has gained more than 1,000 new soldiers that would not have been allowed to join before January, she said.

The active Army has gained a total of 389 individuals older than age 35 since the age limit was lifted, while the Army Reserve has gained 696 soldiers over the age of 35, Bobick said.

So the Army has raised the enlistment age from 40 to 42 as a means to increase their enlistments, and yet the Army also says they don't expect that many people over 40 to enlist? Talk about a double-statement here!

But this story does show an even deeper problem with the Army's recruiting drive. Young people do not want to enlist in the Army--not when they know they are going on a one-way ticket to Iraq. For the last two years, the Army has been consistently missing its recruiting goals. Consider this Yahoo story, titled Army takes older recruits:

The Army Reserve, along with the regular Army and Army National Guard, missed its fiscal 2005 recruiting goal, and it currently lags its fiscal 2006 year-to-date goal by 4 percent.

Army Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, the new Army Reserve chief, said he does not expect the Reserve to reach its goal of 36,000 recruits for fiscal 2006, which ends September 30.

"We think we'll come in right around that 96 (percent), 97 percent range," Stultz told reporters.

As this Iraq war continues to grind on, young people are realizing just how bad the situation is for the soldiers over there in Iraq. Consider this photo:

An honor guard prepares to receive the remains of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca as they are unloaded off an airplane at the Brownsville-South Padre Island International Airport in Brownsville, Texas, Monday, June 26, 2006. Menchaca was killed recently in Iraq; his funeral is planned for Wednesday in Brownsville.(AP Photo/Eric Gay)

They are not enlisting, because they don't want to be sent to Iraq. I've written about military recruitment problems in a previous post here. What is more, with a growing American public's opposition to this war, and the increasing support to provide some type of timetable for a withdrawal, the Army is going to continue having problems maintaining its recruitment goals. The Army could simply lower their recruitment quotas, or raise the enlistment age from 42 to 45--or even age 50. But these are short-term solutions to a long-term problem of the Army fighting an unpopular war in Iraq.

And yet, there is a common thread between these two stories of the military equipment costs skyrocketing, and the Army's raising of the enlistment age. The Bush administration has decided to go to war in Iraq "on the cheap." Instead of raising taxes to pay for the military equipment necessary to fight the war in Iraq, the Bush White House submits emergency spending bills for congressional rubber-stamping, while at the same time promoting tax cuts to the rich as a means of continuing the U.S. economic expansion. The problem here is that it has left the U.S. awash in debt that it can ill afford to pay. The manpower situation is just as bad. Instead of instituting some form of draft, the Bush administration has forced extended tours of duty in Irag for thousands of soldiers--sometimes multiple tours of duty for these soldiers. They have forced soldiers to serve beyond their enlistment contracts. In the end, recruitments and enlistments have fallen sharply, forcing the Army to demand even more from fewer soldiers. In the end, the Bush administration has decided to engage a war in Iraq, while demanding no sacrifices from the American people--either through raising money by taxes, or increasing military manpower through a draft. As a result of this mis-management, the U.S. military sitting in Iraq today is looking more like the U.S. military that was sitting in Vietnam, over 30 years ago.

And I'm not sure that the U.S. military can recover from this Bush fiasco.