Iraq - what do we do?

[tex]

Originally posted by thew:

We don't need the draft. We're more than strong enough to fight two Iraq's even without the draft. The volenteer military is stronger and better than the draft military of vietnam anyways. One thing we might need is people with particular skills who might not re-up. The draft wouldn't help us there though as those people have to be given more financial incentives to re-up, training draftee's on a yearly basis won't improve the overall skills nearly as much as keeping the folks who know what their doing in place.

By J. David Galland

J. David Galland is Deputy Editor of DefenseWatch Magazine. He can be reached at defensewatch02@yahoo.com.

Never in the history of the post-Vietnam volunteer Army has such a beaten up and over-tasked force had to sustain itself in the face of ever-expanding requirements and constantly accelerating deployment tempos that we see today.

The quality of our force is suffering. Anybody who denies that fact is either blind or ignorant. If the military is not bolstered, very soon, with an infusion of smart, well-trained, and highly-motivated volunteers, the force will suffer even more.

Where do we start pointing the finger? Do we just sweep this under the rug, chin up, and stop our bellyaching? Not on your life, because if it is not cured now, it is going to fester into a quandary that will present the United States with an unprecedented challenge in this time of war.

A fix is needed and it begins with the Army personnel system. This is a system that has been in place since the waning days of our two-decade involvement in Vietnam.

At that time our military forces were experiencing a virtual meltdown due to the massive conscription of young men from generally "less than affluent" America. President Lyndon Johnson deferred the politically sensitive issue of mass mobilizations of National Guard units for duty in Vietnam and further drew the fighting force from the average kid back on the block.

His own guilt for his mismanagement of the Vietnam War haunted him to the point of refusing to run for a second term and a flat refusal to accept a Democratic nomination if one was forthcoming. It was time for a change and it came with the election of President Richard M. Nixon.

Shortly after Nixon occupied the White House, he embraced a quote by an esteemed military leader. General Maxwell Taylor, the former Army Chief of Staff and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said "Although the Army had been sent to Vietnam to save that nation, it had to be withdrawn in order to save the Army."

In response, Nixon promised to get the United States" combat forces out of Vietnam and end the draft. He accomplished both of those goals by the end of his first term. In July 1973, the Pentagon established the all-volunteer force. After several years of inevitable challenges and start-up problems, by the early 1980s the U.S. armed forces became, without a doubt, the most professional, highly educated, and highly qualified military force that the nation had ever fielded.

We maneuvered through the 1980s, gaining our "sea-legs" with Team Spirit Exercises in South Korea, annual REFORGER exercises in Europe, and numerous other training and quasi-real world, sub-exercises and military maneuvers around the globe. Our forces grew wise in the ways of the Central American guerrilla and we began to see the former Yugoslavia as a future area of military focus.

Peacekeeping duties in certain areas in the Balkans, and in the Sinai, remained sustained requirements. Many reservists were called up to bolster the active force. Shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, DoD was forced to call up more reserve and National Guard troops to meet the requirements of Operation Desert Storm.

To the credit of the reserve and National Guard units and their soldiers, volunteerism was largely back in style. Augmentation and call-ups seemed to proceed well back then. So why are we in trouble now?

The answer is simple! During the first Gulf War, and in line with other global peacekeeping duties, our reserve and National Guard soldiers were not kept on active duty for more than six months at a stretch. Active duty soldiers who were sent on peacekeeping missions were also rotated back to home-station after six months and they were not deployed overseas or into hazardous duty missions until they had spent at least a year at their home-station.

But in the aftermath of 9/11, the reserve component mobilization system began to beak down.

Only nine months earlier Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld had taken over at The Pentagon. In an initial announcement, Rumsfeld said that his mandate was to transform the military by the incorporation of the absolute latest technology in the development and acquisition of weapons systems.

Rumsfeld, however, failed to address the issue of the sense of balance between active-duty and reserve soldiers. This rapidly became a critical issue once the nation went to war in Afghanistan and later in Iraq.

Thomas Hall, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs, told reporters that the Pentagon"s civilian and military leadership has been aggressively studying this issue for almost two years. To this point, apparently, not much has resulted from all of that studying. There are consequences that are directly attributable to the lack of results.

The reality of the present day reserve forces is that their level of military responsibility has hardly changed since 1973.

According to the Defense Department, reserve soldiers represent 97 percent of all the military's civil affairs units, 70 percent of all engineering units, 66 percent of all military police, and stunningly enough - 50 percent of actual combat forces.

All this is further compounded by the fact that the active-duty Army has shrunk to 480,000 full time green-suiters. The Army now represents only 34 percent of the total U.S. armed forces.

The reality does not stop there. Due to poor planning, lack of foresight, and near catastrophic shortcomings in the forecasting of the strategic picture requirements in post-war Iraq, the situation has seriously worsened.

The demand on our soldiers is compounded by the fact that the United States has been woefully unable to secure sizeable military personnel and equipment contributions from other nations for Iraq. The resulting burden of stabilizing Iraq is being borne on the backs of our exhausted soldiers.

The Army today is ominously overstretched. Currently there are approximately 370,000 Army soldiers deployed in 120 countries around the world.

The Army has 33 combat brigades, of which 24 are currently engaged in operations outside the continental United States. That constitutes roughly 74 percent of the Army"s combat brigades. The vulnerability of this imbalance can be ascertained in Korea: What could we do if a new war erupts there?

For those with minimal awareness of military planning, the brigade figures translate directly into the fact that our combat unitsLatest News Letter: Exposing Bush the liar, the mass murderer, the war criminal??? US firmly in control The U.S. Military Is in Real Trouble Occupation codename: Democracy Exposing Bush the liar, the mass murderer, the war criminal

will be subject to subsequent or back-to-back deployments. At the very least, just about all deployed soldiers will have their hazardous duty tours extended, usually just when they thought they might be coming home.

A few examples that warrant attention consist of the First Brigade of the 82nd. Airborne Division. The brigade was sent to Iraq in January 2004, when it had just returned to home station only five months earlier from duty in Afghanistan.

The 3rd Infantry Division - the unit that liberated Baghdad in early April of last year - had its tour in Iraq extended no less than five times. Some frustrated soldiers of the 3rd Infantry ran afoul of contemporary discipline standards when they were quoted as making less than proper statements to reporters about the secretary of defense.

Notwithstanding, in July 2003, Central Command chief Gen. John Abizaid announced that all Army units would have to spend a full year in Iraq, which is double the normal tour for peacekeeping duties.

Yet another shameful result of the lack of planning is that many National Guard and reserve forces have been mobilized without proper notification timelines. They have been kept on active duty far longer than anyone would have anticipated. These part-time soldiers have also been sent to hotspots such as Iraq and Afghanistan without effective and necessary time-phased training.

For example, a contingent of the Michigan National Guard was sent to Iraq with only 48 hours notice. The 115th Military Police Battalion of the Maryland National Guard has been mobilized three times in the past two years. By the end of their third tour most members of the unit will have had actually remained on active duty for 18 months. How can this happen?

Don't ask Lt. Gen. James Helmly, the commander of the Army Reserve. This is the commander who went on record with the press saying that a reserve soldier should be given at least 30 days notice before being mobilized and those reservists should not be kept on duty for more than 9 to 12 months in a 5-6 year timeframe. Draw your own conclusions on veracity when it comes to the Army Reserve chief.

Another ripple effect of the failure to reorganize the personnel structure goes right to the sinew of many American communities and municipalities.

Many of the reservists who have been called up without proper notice or who are being kept on duty too long are police officers, firefighters, and paramedics in their civilian lives. Many serve as initial responders who are vital to the safety and security of their communities and their residents. In one West Virginia State Police unit, 25 percent of the troopers have been mobilized and are serving in the military.

The worsening situation also affects overall military readiness. From my corner of the foxhole, this is where the rubber meets the road in the need to address personnel reorganization and to confront the problems afflicting our military forces.

In fiscal year 2003, the Army had to cancel 49 of its scheduled 182 training exercises. DoD admits that the four Army Divisions returning from Iraq in the first five months of 2004 will not be combat-ready again for at least six months. Pentagon officials admit that the soldiers" equipment has worn down and their war-fighting skills have withered while they were doing police work. So out of a total of ten divisions in the whole U.S. Army, four can"t do anything war-related for half a year!

The cumulative effect of this deterioration on troopers' morale cannot be underestimated.

Following a recent survey of U.S. soldiers in Iraq by the military newspaper Stars & Stripes, some analysts have concluded that the Bush administration's approach to Iraq risks doing to the All-Volunteer Force what Vietnam did to the draft.

The survey, which polled thousands of troops, found that 40 percent of recipients said their missions in Iraq had little or nothing to do with what they had trained for. Perhaps even more foreboding, half the soldiers who were surveyed indicated that they will not reenlist when their tours end or when the Pentagon lifts the stop-loss order currently in effect that has prevented over 24,000 active duty soldiers and over 16,000 reservists from leaving the service.

This week I spoke over twenty Army NCOs, all recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan duty. Ranging in rank from corporal to sergeant 1st class, all but two said they intend to leave active service once they get the opportunity to do so. The majority added that they wish to completely sever their military ties and will not join reserve units to continue their service.

Two general officers, who have asked that they remain nameless, have both told me that it is their firm belief; that if it were not for the stop-loss policy then the total force would already be in critically severe jeopardy and it clearly could not complete its missions. Meanwhile, U.S. Army Reserve officials are pondering why they have missed their reenlistment goals for 2003.

Each of these divisions should number around 14,000 soldiers and one division should be active and the other reserve.

According to a study sponsored by retired Vice Adm. Arthur Cebrowski, these two divisions must be added to the existing Army structure. The divisions are critically important because our combat units have been run ragged installing and propping-up indigenous leaders into positions of quasi statesmanship, with American backing, and playing the role of un-invited cop-on-the-beat. These two mandates are clearly two types of missions that infantry soldiers are not trained at and should not be doing.

Finally, when one considers the present and anticipated threat to America's homeland, some hard decisions need to be made at the Pentagon.

No longer can we allow individuals with civilian jobs, and professions that are an important part of the homeland security network, to sign on with National Guard and reserve units.

Homeland defense is the basis for our national security effort. The defense of our nation, right down to the little towns in the hinterlands, requires full-time dedicated personnel manning the local effort.

Towns and cities that find themselves left with only a fraction of their police and fire departments, reduced medical staff at local hospitals, and largely absent city and town administrations, set a dangerous precedent. This is exactly where the roots of homeland defense and America's security begin.

Originally posted by thew:

No need to produce more weapons we have plenty. We outspend the next 17 greatest military powers combined. We have enough smart bombs in storage to bomb Iraq for several years withough having to create any new ones.

Besides in this type of insurgent war it's not smart bombs so much as it will be ammunition for our helocopter gun ships and small arms fire... Don't need any more of that..

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2001834393_ammo11.html

U.S. ammunition plant reaching its limit

By Joseph L. Galloway

Knight Ridder Newspapers

FORT BELVOIR, Va. — The U.S. military's only plant making small-arms ammunition is running at near capacity, 4 million rounds a day, and the United States still is forced to look overseas and to the recreational industry for ammunition for troops in Afghanistan and Iraq and those training to deploy there soon.

Gen. Paul Kern, commander of the Army Materiel Command, said Friday that giving those units priority ensured they had enough small-arms ammunition. "Everyone else will have to pay the price" and wait for it, he said.

The increased demand for ammunition for combat shooting and intensified training has made deep inroads in the nation's war reserves of ammunition, Kern said.

The sole plant making small-arms ammunition, the Lake City Army Ammunition Plant in Independence, Mo., is running three eight-hour shifts a day, six days a week. The plant provides 5.56 mm rifle, 7.62 mm and .50 caliber machine gun as well as 9 mm pistol cartridges for all branches of the military.

Because of the increased demand for ammunition since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Kern said the Army in late December let two supplemental contracts to Olin Winchester of East Alton, Ill., and Israeli Military Industries for each to produce 70 million rifle rounds per month starting in June.

The general said it would probably take until 2005 to get small-arms ammunition production to a level at which there will be enough to cover all the increased training needs and begin rebuilding the war reserves.

"We can't just go out and buy our ammunition commercially," Kern said. "We maintain very tight quality controls. Our ammo has to work, at 40 below zero or 140 degrees."

He said the Army has put an additional $225 million into small-arms ammunition production and additional armor for Humvees since the 9-11 attacks.

In addition to combat requirements, two other factors were driving the increased demand for ammunition: increased live-fire training for combat-service-support units and the fact that Reserves and National Guard were shooting as much as the active Army as they trained for deployment to combat, Kern said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4701323/

Countering the insurgency, Stayskal said, has been difficult for Marines on the ground. In his case, his unit was chronically short of ammunition, and his support unit got pinned down at the same time across town. The two units couldn't help each other.

"They weren't giving us nearly enough ammunition for the situations out there. Everyone was running out. Everyone was grabbing each other's ammunition."

Originally posted by thew:

It's filled although we constantly add to it. The Saudi's have a larger oil reserve outside of Saudi than America has for our strategic oil reserve however. If we have to rely on our oil reserve we will be in sereous do do...

The oil reserve is not currently filled to capacity.

http://www.twincities.com/mld/pioneerpress/2004/03/24/business/8259637.htm

Posted on Wed, Mar. 24, 2004

Bush to keep filling oil reserves

BY H. JOSEF HEBERT

Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Citing national security, the Bush administration said Tuesday it will continue to pump oil into the government's emergency stockpile despite tight private supplies that have contributed to soaring gasoline prices.

Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, at a Senate hearing, disputed claims by several Democratic senators that the diversion of 150,000 barrels of oil a day into the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has added to economic pressures that are causing costs to increase.

While some economists have cited such a link, others conclude that the amount of oil being taken off the market "is fairly negligible" in a global oil market of 86 million barrels a day, said Abraham.

Abraham said that filling the oil reserve, a complex of salt domes along the Gulf Coast, to its maximum 700 million barrels is "a critical national security objective" that President Bush has determined should not be interrupted.

The reserve, which is to be used if there is a severe disruption of oil coming into the country, currently contains about 645 million barrels.

But Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., questioned the diversion at a time when private oil inventories, at 281 million barrels, are 23.4 million barrels below the five-year average for this time of year, according to the Energy Department's statistical agency.

"When supply goes down in the private inventory the price is going to go up," argued Levin. He said high energy prices have been "a drag on the economy" and also pose national security concerns.

After the hearing, Abraham told reporters it was the administration's view that the Strategic Petroleum Reserve "is not to be used to manipulate prices" and that the impact on prices "is not very significant" because the diversions are predictable and already taken into account by oil markets. If the oil were left in the market, foreign producers could simply compensate with modest production cuts, he suggested.

[troyster]

DCogan1820 - You're an absolute disgrace in my eyes, not that you care I'm sure.

Sarge - Best wishes with your recovery. I love these guys who whine and complain about the amount of deaths in Iraq (I agree that any amount of American deaths should never be taken lightly), but then insult and criticize the military and soldiers out of the other side of their mouths with isolated events they've scoured the net for. I'm going to assume you know more of what you're talking about concerning Iraq than some Pokemon watching pansy.

[Sarge]

Originally posted by troyster

Sarge - Best wishes with your recovery.

BTW, thanks. It's going to be long, slow and painful they tell me. They also say my weightlifting days, at least above a 220 bench, are probably over. So too are my days of combat control and helping a$$holes meet allah, at least in a direct way.

[Waldo da Magnificent]

DCogan1820 - Bravo, young man, bravo.

It's simply mind boggling to me that after all this time, anyone can still defend invading Iraq. Young men are dying over there because a bunch of political hacks decided to use American anger, fear and pain after 9/11 for their own personal agenda, rather than for the security of this nation.

[jpillian]

Going back to the title of this thread - what to do in Iraq?

I think first off it’s amazing how poorly the invasion was pitched to the international community. I believe, by far, the long term most compelling reason for the invasion was to remove a brutal dictator that was responsible for multiple human rights atrocities against the Kurds in the north, the Shia in the south, and even against fellow Sunni political opponents.

Now I’m just as confused about this as the next guy. I just wanted to bring an opinion from another guy that was recently on the ground there (and a fellow skins fan, of course). Of course, not that that makes my opinion any more important than any other here.

I went to Iraq in April 03 as the Executive Officer for the Headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division. Spent the first five months in Tikrit running logistics for FOB Ironhorse and buying supplies on the local economy as a Field Ordering Officer. Fascinating work, because it allowed me to get out to the local markets in nearly all the cities in northern Iraq and practice my Arabic. Unfortunately Iraqi Arabic is a world apart from the Quaranic Arabic I learned at West Point, so more often than not I ended up with the locals understanding me, while I couldn’t understand a word they said back.

In turn my background in Middle Eastern Studies and overall familiarity with the locals, led me to be chosen for my next job as a Liaison Officer from the 4th Infantry Division to the Coalition Provisional Authority’s Headquarters for Northern Iraq, based out of Irbil. I spent 4 months in Irbil (Aug-Dec 03), where I lived and worked with the civilian officials that were responsible for the rebuilding of the Iraqi infrastructure in N. Iraq. In other parts of Iraq, the CPA is also responsible for governance to a large degree. However, in the north, the Kurds have been political autonomous since really the end of the Iran-Iraq War in ’88, so the politics are fairly liberal (as in democratized) and stable under the Kurdish Regional Government.

From my experiences, I honestly have various opinions about what we should do depending on what scarce news is reaching me these days.

Having recently been on the ground there, and made many personal relationships with both Sunni Arabs near Tikrit, as well as the most pro-US folks I have ever met – the Kurds in Northern Iraq – I can’t fathom abandoning the Iraqis at this point. This persepctive further prevents me from believing that we were wrong in going there; despite, thus far, not finding any evidence of the WMDs that were a big part of the justification of the war. Certainly, the majority of the Iraqis that I interacted with were overwhelmed with what the US had done for them; in terms of liberating them from the fear of an oppressive regime and actually beginning to pour back into Iraq resources which Saddam had been siphoning off since before the Iran-Iraq war to support his opulent lifestyle.

However, I can also see how the war simply does not make sense from a strategic standpoint. It has certainly exacerbated the fault lines between Islamic and Western civilization. Recently, I’ve heard a number of television “analysts” talking about the big news of how Iraqis have become more involved in violent insurgence. Certainly, this is true in the context of Sadr’s Al-Mahdi militia. However, beyond that, the battle with former regime loyalists, the Baathist who have been engaged in the insurgency for the past year, is certainly winding down. The most significant, and growing threat in Iraq is in fact the thousands of Islamic jihadists that are flooding the country. These are the folks that have been behind the more ominous threats of suicide bombings and surface to air missile attacks against our aircraft. They bring with them funding and the know-how they have acquired from their sponsoring states (Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran most notably). The war has been a recruiting wet dream for the jihadists wanting to do harm to the West.

At this point, I don’t see a clear way ahead in Iraq. From the “boots on the ground” level, I certainly believe we should stay; and the personal relationships I’ve forged color my perspective on whether we were justified from a humanitarian perspective. Yet, from a strategic and theoretical perspective, I don’t see this as being the preferred way of entering into this “clash of civilizations.” While we have picked the initial, conventionally successful battleground, I can’t help but think that we have locked in a course for increasingly pitched battles between Western and Islamic civilizations for the foreseeable future.