Warning that the active-duty Army "will break" under the strain of today's war-zone rotations, the nation's top Army general yesterday called for expanding the force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation's main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today's Pentagon policies is "not right."
In particularly blunt testimony, Schoomaker said the Army began the Iraq war "flat-footed" with a $56 billion equipment shortage and 500,000 fewer soldiers than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Echoing the warnings from the post-Vietnam War era, when Gen. Edward C. Meyer, then the Army chief of staff, decried the "hollow Army," Schoomaker said it is critical to make changes now to shore up the force for what he called a long and dangerous war.
Wait a minute--the Army began the Iraq war "flat-footed" with 500,000 fewer soldiers and a $56 billion equipment shortage than they had in the 1991 Persian Gulf War? Did the Pentagon even know about this when President Bush and his PNAC neocons started pushing for their invasion of Iraq? Did former Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld even listen to his military commanders? Why is this story even a major crisis for the military, where the Army "will break" under the strain of the Iraqi occupation? Consider this February 25, 2003 USA Today story:
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army's top general said Tuesday a military occupying force for a postwar Iraq could total several hundred thousand soldiers.
Iraq is "a piece of geography that's fairly significant," Gen. Eric K. Shinseki said at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. And he said any postwar occupying force would have to be big enough to maintain safety in a country with "ethnic tensions that could lead to other problems."
In response to questioning by Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the committee, Shinseki said he couldn't give specific numbers of the size of an occupation force but would rely on the recommendations of commanders in the region.
"How about a range?" said Levin.
"I would say that what's been mobilized to this point, something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers," the general said. "Assistance from friends and allies would be helpful."
Apparently Shinseki knew that it would take several hundred thousand troops to occupy Iraq, and he made that view known to Levin back in February 2003--you can bet that Shinseki also told Rumsfeld of the need for a large occupation force even before the invasion began. And Rumsfeld rejected both Shinseki's views and testimony to Congress. According to this June 4, 2003 CNN story:
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Pentagon's civilian leadership underestimated the number of troops needed to occupy Iraq after ousting Saddam Hussein, former Army Secretary Thomas White said Tuesday.
"I just think we mis-estimated it, and I think the sooner we come to that realization and set ourselves up for the long term, the better off we will be," White told CNN in a telephone interview.
[....]
Gen. Eric Shinseki, the outgoing Army chief of staff, told Congress in February that "something on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would be needed to govern Iraq after a war.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld discounted that estimate within days.
"Any idea that it's several hundred thousand over any sustained period is simply not the case," he said.
And it is not just Rumsfeld, but the entire neocon establishment that rejected the need for a large occupation force inside Iraq. Also in the CNN story:
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, were leading advocates of the U.S. attack on Iraq. In congressional testimony last month, Wolfowitz said Shinseki's estimate was still overstated.
"I would say 'several hundred thousand' is 300,000 or more, and I don't think we're close to that," he said.
White said Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld can't come to grips with the idea that more troops are needed.
"Obviously the size of force [was] based upon a whole series of assumptions, and I just think we got the assumptions wrong," White said.
So why am I bringing up this old hash? Because in the Pentagon's wisdom, they are bringing up their own incompetence as a means to support the Army's interest of taking control of both the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, so that the Army can ship those soldiers out to Iraq. Let's go back to the current WaPost article:
"The Army is incapable of generating and sustaining the required forces to wage the global war on terror . . . without its components -- active, Guard and reserve -- surging together," Schoomaker said in testimony before the congressionally created Commission on the National Guard and Reserves.
The burden on the Army's 507,000 active-duty soldiers -- who now spend more time at war than at home -- is simply too great, he said. "At this pace, without recurrent access to the reserve components, through remobilization, we will break the active component," he said, drawing murmurs around the hearing room.
Schoomaker's highly public appeal for more troops and reserve call-ups appeared to be part of an Army campaign to lobby incoming Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, who is to be sworn in Monday, to approve the desired policy changes as well as a significant increase in the Army budget.
You have to marvel at how the military--and especially the Army--is playing this game. Not only did they not have enough men to do the job in Iraq, but now they are using Rumsfeld's, and the Bush administration's, own incompetence as proof that the Army can't succeed in its mission in Iraq, and that the Army must have more troops and money to pour down this black hole of Iraq--where they will still continue to fail. And it is not just the Army that is playing this game of “Give us more troops to send to Iraq." Arizona senator John McCain wants to send 20,000 more U.S. troops to Iraq. And interestingly enough, there is an argument going on within the Pentagon, where military officers are also calling for an increase in U.S. troops in Iraq. I found this December 4, 2006 Wall Street Journal article:
As demands mount to pull U.S. troops out of Iraq, a growing number of senior military officials are arguing that the only way to salvage the situation is to add more U.S. forces and more U.S. money.
Outside the military, most of the debate is focused on a U.S. troop withdrawal. But inside the Pentagon, the recent dismissal of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has given some new life to arguments by military officers who say the U.S. must pour more troops and money into the country to expand the Iraqi army -- the one institution in Iraq that has shown some promise -- and stabilize the capital.
Right now there are about 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. Though there are no firm plans for an increase, some military officials said that as many as 30,000 more troops could be needed. Most of the U.S. troops would be focused on patrolling Baghdad and training the Iraqi Army.
[....]
The push among the uniformed military to do more in Iraq is being driven, in part, by a small study group working for Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The group's work, which is classified, lays out several options for Iraq. But it seems to favor a temporary increase in U.S. forces as part of a broader effort to build the Iraqi Army, says an officer familiar with its work.
The officers' recommendations largely run counter to Mr. Rumsfeld's own ideas, which were revealed in a leaked memorandum written by Mr. Rumsfeld in early November and published yesterday by the New York Times. In the memo Mr. Rumsfeld suggests a pulling back of U.S. forces to bigger bases and possible withdrawals of U.S. troops "so the Iraqis know they have to pull up their socks, step up and take responsibility for their country."
Most military officers, however, seem to believe that a pullback of U.S. forces would only trigger more violence and make political compromise in the country impossible. These officers argue that 20,000 U.S. troops are needed to bring order to Baghdad. Another 10,000 U.S. soldiers would also be needed to work as advisers with the Iraqi Army, which currently numbers about 134,000 troops and might need to double in size.
Military officials who advocate such an approach warn that it could take years and hundreds of billions of dollars. But many of these officers bristle at the idea that it is too hard or impossible.
I have to wonder if there is a connection between this "small study group working for Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff," and the Army's latest dire reports of how it "will break" under the strain of the current war in Iraq, and the Army's desire to take "full access" of both the Army National Guard and Reserve forces. If Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Congress approve of the Army's request to take "full access" of the Army National Guard and Reserve troops, then this will give Pace's small study group the manpower needed to implement their plan to increase U.S. troop levels in Iraq for their Baghdad patrol and advisory operations with the Iraqi Army.
It is an interesting approach for resolving the Iraq war. This approach gives the Pentagon their own way to achieve "victory" in Iraq. The Pentagon can sell this plan to the Bush administration, which is desperately searching for a way out of Iraq. In fact, the Wall Street Journal article says that the Bush White House is open to the idea of temporarily increasing the number of U.S. troops in Iraq as a means of stabilizing the country. I wouldn't be surprised if President Bush comes out in support with this plan once he makes his big Iraq speech in January. And finally, the Pentagon can sell this plan to a Democratic Congress using the doom-and-gloom scenario of the Army breaking under the strain of the Iraq war--we must support the troops! There is just one question I'd like to leave you with regarding this new plan....
Will the Iraqis accept this?
No comments:
Post a Comment