Colby Buzzell, author of My War--one of the best Iraq memoirs out there--has been called up from the IRR and will be returning to Iraq. For reasons that I've specified in the past, this is utter horseshit. Our country is in sad shape when cowards like Matthew Continetti and Jason Mattera are allowed to refuse to serve--instead choosing to cheer from the bench--while people like Colby Buzzell are forced to go involuntarily again and again.
This is nothing less than a backdoor draft. And it's wrong. We need to either have a draft or not have a draft. But one way or the other, these IRR mobilizations need to stop.
Here's part of Buzzell's take on his own situation (though you should go read the whole thing in the San Francisco Chronicle:
I got out of the Army three long years ago, and since then I've never really talked ill of the military, the people in it, or expressed any regrets at all about enlisting. If I had to do it all over again, I honestly would have. Granted, I got lucky and made it back with all my body parts intact. If I hadn't, my answer might be a little bit different than what it is now.
As terrible as this might sound, whenever someone asks me about enlisting, I'm tempted to encourage them. I figure that the more people who enlist, the slimmer the chances that I'll get called back up. But of course this is ridiculous: No one in their right mind would enlist now, whereas I've already signed the papers. I'm now going back to Iraq for a second time because people like me - existing service members - are the only people at the Army's disposal.
Looking back, would I have joined the military if I were doing something that I loved? Or had a job that paid $100,000 a year? Probably not. Those are the men and women I feel that we need to mail these letters to. Let's see what happens when they receive letters telling them to put on a uniform and ship out immediately to the front lines in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Many people believe that the draft ended the Vietnam War. I'm convinced that reinstating the draft would definitely end this war. Rich, connected people will always find a way to evade mandatory service, but what about the rest of America? The middle class - people with good jobs and nice lives - would perhaps riot if the government even suggested that it expected from them what the Army expects from veterans.
What if there were a war and none of the veterans who were called up showed up?
Every time when I hear about a soldier's death now - which is always reported very briefly - there always seems to be a short mention that it was the soldier's second or third deployment, and now my name might be among them.
I know I won't get any sympathy at all from the "you dumb ass you signed the contract!" crowd, which is fine, but I really was looking forward to applying my GI Bill to photography classes so I could learn how to take pictures. But now, thanks to not enough Americans volunteering for military service, I now have to worry about my picture appearing on the second or third page of my hometown paper with the words, "it was his second deployment" in my obituary.
If you read VetVoice, you already know this, but it's always worth stating again: Our country has lost its way. We have our work cut out for us.
Iraqi forces claimed tonight to have arrested the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq during an operation in the northern city of Mosul, one of the terrorist organisation's last major hold-outs in the country.
Abu Ayyub al-Masri, the nom de guerre of Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was captured in a joint US-Iraqi operation, according to Iraqi military sources quoted by the Arabic news channel al-Arabiya. The US military said it could not confirm the information.
Al-Masri's death was reported by the Iraqi military last year and later proved to be wrong.
While this in itself won't change much in terms of the situation on the ground, it's certainly a positive development. As Cernig at Newshoggers notes:
If it is true, I've two predictions - that the pro-occupation crowd will hail it as yet another last corner, and that it won't really make any difference to events in Iraq. The Sunni and Shiite faction-fights are now entirely independent of Al Qaeda's influence while AQI's activities in Mosul and beyond, based upon a cell system, will hardly be slowed by the loss of their leader.
Either way, this is good news.
UPDATE: Scratch everything. Turns out the story is bullshit:
A man seized by Iraqi forces is not the head of al Qaeda in Iraq, a senior U.S. military official said on Friday, following an announcement by several Iraqi officials that Abu Ayyub al-Masri had been captured.
When the last major polling was done on the Senate race in Texas, it appeared that VoteVets-endorsed candidate and Afghanistan veteran Rick Noriega was in a bad spot: The incumbent Senator, Bush pal John Cornyn, had a commanding 51 percent to 35 lead.
But in the past few months, that's all changed. Markos Moulitsas of Daily Kos gives us the latest:
Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 5/5-7. Likely voters. MoE 4% (9/24-26/07 results)
Cornyn (R) 48 (51)
Noriega (D) 44 (35)
That is nothing short of astounding. And lest anyone worry that it's an outlier, these numbers confirm a Rasmussen poll from earlier this week:
Rasmussen. 5/1. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trend lines)
Cornyn (R) 47
Noriega (D) 43
The fact that two consecutive polls show only a four point lead for Cornyn demonstrates that Lieutenant Colonel Noriega is not only viable as a candidate, but that sitting Republican John Cornyn is terribly unpopular in Texas.
Bottom line: Noriega is well within striking distance. You're going to hear a lot more about this race as the year goes on. Click here to help put Rick over the top:
For weeks, the US Army had a blockade around Sadr City to keep vehicles from entering or leaving the dangerous area. Residents of the besieged district complained of skyrocketing food prices, trash piling up in the streets, and claustrophobia from being trapped indoors. Several lawmakers staged sit-ins to protest the blockade. That blockade has been lifted, and residents are now being asked to leave.
BAGHDAD (AP) - Local residents say Iraqi soldiers are warning people to leave their homes in Sadr City for security reasons.
They say the warning is the first time residents are being told to flee the embattled Baghdad district.
Sadr City is a rather small area, only about six square miles in size. However, it is heavily populated and it has been a constant battleground area for US troops fighting against Shia militias since 2003. During OIF I, my unit was tasked with guarding Iraqi police stations in that area. The intense fighting there continues still today. This is from just last week:
BAGHDAD - The ugly daily fight for ground in the poor Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City unfolded Saturday at a small mosque next door to a hospital, damaging the hospital and a number of its ambulances, and near a group of children who were wounded as they gathered tin cans to sell for salvage.
The missiles that hit close to the Sadr General Hospital were American. After a night of clashes in the neighborhood, the Americans fired at least three "precision-guided munitions" at the small building next door to the hospital. Neighbors said the building was used as a place of prayer for pilgrims, hospital employees and neighborhood residents, but the military identified it as a command center for the Shiite militias that it is battling.
Since the evacuations have begun, more than 6,000 people have fled their homes in Sadr City, according to UNICEF. A number of humanitarian groups are now trying to feed and shelter the refugees that are pouring out of the area. Approximately 2.5 million people currently live in Sadr City.
For months now, supporters of the war in Iraq have trumpeted America's apparent success in Iraq's Anbar Province as a model for counterinsurgency operations. With major fighting in Fallujah, Ramadi, and Qaim in the past, what had once been the most violent region of Iraq had--by the fall of 2007--become one of the most peaceful areas of the country.
It stayed that way until recently. When a yet-to-be-named U.S. soldier was killed while on patrol in Anbar on Tuesday, he became the ninth American to die there in the past three and a half weeks. This is neither random nor insignificant.
In fact, during the past 30 days, 23 percent of coalition combat fatalities have occurred in al-Anbar Province. Considering that only two U.S. troops had been killed in Anbar in the preceding six months--representing just over one percent of total coalition combat fatalities during that period--this is a huge uptick.
In comparison, combat fatalities have dropped significantly in Baghdad over the same 30-day period. The graph below shows the percentages of coalition combat fatalities taking place in Baghdad and al-Anbar over the past seven months (in 30-day increments beginning on October 11, 2007):
To be certain, people don't plant IEDs randomly. Planting roadside bombs in the first place is incredibly risky, and insurgents don't take the issue lightly. Thus, when IEDs and VBIEDs (car bombs) suddenly start going off west of Baghdad again, it's for a reason.
While I do not profess to know exactly what change in the political climate precipitated this specific spike in violence, I do know that General Petraeus was correct when he said that the placidity in Anbar Province was reversible. What most have failed to realize thus far is that, while al Qaeda is deeply unpopular in Anbar, U.S. forces are equally despised. So it seems that those who've repeatedly used Anbar's relative peacefulness as a sign of impending U.S. success in Iraq know little about counterinsurgency and less about Iraq.
Success in Iraq is something that will be brought about by Iraqis--not the American military. As long as we're there, the best we can hope for is extreme violence broken by periodic lulls--such as what we've witnessed in Anbar over the past seven months. As long we remain in Iraq, the violence will remain cyclical. It will rise and fall, contingent on the latest deal we've cut with tribal leaders or the latest deal that someone has brokered within the Iraqi government. But our military will never completely solve this inherently Iraqi problem. We're watching that unfortunate fact unfold before us in Anbar this month.
Army Secretary Pete Geren said today that the military will commit $248 million to repair dilapidated barracks around the world.
About $2.3 million will be spent on fixing barracks problems on Fort Bragg, he said.
Geren made the announcement this afternoon while visiting the installation for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new soldier housing. The initiative to repair aging barracks comes nearly two weeks after The Fayetteville Observer first reported on a video posted online by a soldier's father, showing images of his son's moldy, 50-year-old living quarters on Fort Bragg.
My question: Why is it that nothing changes until someone goes to the media? All we ever hear in the military is, "Use your chain of command. Use your chain of command." Well, using the chain of command didn't stop the torture at Abu Ghraib. It didn't get us enough armor for our vehicles in Iraq. It didn't fix the disgraceful conditions at Walter Reed. And it didn't fix the barracks at Fort Bragg. None of these situations were rectified until the media got involved.
So why can't the military police itself? Isn't that what we're supposed to be known for? Policing each other up?
When I first entered active duty, the media was the enemy. They weren't to be trusted. Now, that's changed considerably since 9/11, but there's still a vague fear of reporters within the ranks. As far as I'm concerned, however, with the Bush administration still firmly in control, the media has clearly become our ally.
Despite a moderate review on the VetVoice front page for the most recent Iraq-related major movie release, Stop Loss, the flick totally bombed! It generated a pathetic $10.8 million and got a meek 65% on the tomato meter. This follows in the wake of other movies related to our current conflicts which have all flopped as well to include: Home of the Brave, Valley of Elah, and Lions for Lambs. I was able to watch portions of Valley of Elah on a one-dollar bootleg last night, and it seemed pretty decent, but why did it only make a lousy $6.5 million, while the teeny-bopper romp Bratz pulled in more cash from the American public?
The conservative-leaning blog, Little Green Footballs, postulated that it has to do with Americans not wanting to hear the overt political leanings of Hollyweird:
It's "a function of the marketplace not being ready." Have they ever considered the possibility that the marketplace doesn't want Hollywood's tedious left-wing anti-American self-hating bias shoved down its throat?
I would disagree with this statement as America is probably accustomed to the left-leaning tendencies of Hollywood at this point (as an ardent non-leftist, I even saw Farenheit 9/11). The reasons these movies about Iraq are doing so poorly is because the end state and the results of our current military conflicts are still very much in question. Audiences aren't going to be comfortable having a definitive war movie when the outcome is still completely unclear. So we may have to wait awhile for the next crop of legendary movies like Platoon, Born on the 4th of July, or Full Metal Jacket for our generation.
As jimstaro announced in his diary yesterday, the Defense Department has publicly released all the documents they gave to the New York Times for the investigation on the Pentagon Propaganda Program. You can access this treasure trove of documents by clicking here.
And for what it's worth, a quick scan through some of the documents does show that Michael O'Hanlon is also involved.
Speaking at West Point on Friday, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen told cadets that if Congress were to repeal the Don't Ask, Don't Tell law, the military would enforce the change.
For quite some time, U.S. troops have supported repealing the military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" (DADT) policy. A December 2006 poll of servicemembers who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan found 73 percent of those polled were "comfortable with lesbians and gays." A 2004 poll found that a majority of junior enlisted servicemembers believed gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve openly in the military, up from 16 percent in 1992.
For an entertaining view of how the current DADT policy helps al Qaeda, check out this clip of Jon Soltz and a right-wing terrorist enabler on CNN last year:
The Pentagon thanked thousands of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans on Tuesday by telling them that, unless they'd served six years on active duty, they weren't worthy of receiving the new GI Bill proposed by Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel:
We certainly do have issues with Senator Webb's bill as it has been described to us. And it's not, as some have suggested, a matter of cost. You know, we are mostly concerned with the harm it would do to troop retention. We have no issue with the fact that Senator Webb wishes to, you know, provide a more generous education benefit to troops, but we are certainly concerned that this would be eligible to them after only two years of service.
We think pegging it to a longer period of service -- the number we have in mind at this point is six years of service -- that the longer you stay in, the sweeter the benefits are to you. Six years would show a commitment to service. In fact, it would allow for at least, at that point, one reenlistment for another tour of duty.
So for all you veterans out there--and even those of you on active duty--who've done multiple combat tours during your first 2-5 years of service, this means you haven't done enough to have earned full GI Bill benefits.
It doesn't matter if you've lost your marriage. It doesn't matter if you wake up three nights a week now with your heart racing. And it doesn't matter if you've left parts of your body on some street in Baghdad. You still haven't given enough. If you want the government to cover the full cost of your education--like it did for your grandparents after World War Two--you'll just have to keep giving until you reach that six year mark.
At some point, the Pentagon is going to have to face up to the fact that unjust wars and greedy contractors do far more damage to retention than the GI Bill. But they'll never be forced to unless you speak up.
Because the U.S. government isn't wasting enough money on war profiteers, the Defense Department has decided that it is a swell idea to start using contracted Military Transition Teams (MiTT Teams) to train the Iraqi Army. From WaPo:
The solicitation, issued by the Joint Contracting Command in Baghdad, says the individuals that a contractor recruits -- who would include former members of the U.S. Special Forces and ex-Iraqi army officers -- will be trained in the United States with military transition teams (MiTTs) and shipped as a single team to Iraq. The recruits will live on Iraqi military bases "under Iraqi living conditions and participate with MiTT special operations and convoy duties," the solicitation says.
Just out of curiosity, might these "recruits include" former Navy SEALs?
For those not in the know, MiTT teams consist of 10-15 senior noncommissioned and field grade officers who train and are imbedded with the Iraqi Army. They advise the Iraqi forces on intelligence, communications, fire support, logistics, and infantry tactics. Their goal is to create an Iraqi Security force "capable of conducting independent counterinsurgency operations, tactically, operationally, and logistically."
Now, the Pentagon has developed a plan to use Blackwateresque mercenaries to train the Iraqi Army. Great idea. These guys have done a bang up job thus far. I'm sure a lot of you are, like me, wondering why the military has to switch to contracted MiTT teams, as opposed to using Soldiers to do a Soldier's job. In the WaPo article, Center for Strategic and International Studies scholar Anthony Cordesman describes the move as a "natural step" for the military "during this transition period where the military is converting to noncombat roles". Think about that for a minute. This war has been so mismanaged that it is seen as "natural" that civilians are doing the Soldier's job of training Soldiers, while Soldiers are doing the civilian's job of nation building. Has anyone alerted the State Department to the fact that we are doing taking on their mission while contractors do ours? Does this seem bizarre to anyone else?
Of course, any story involving our military is not complete without Michael O'Hanlon making an ass of himself. The WaPo article is no different.
Michael O'Hanlon, a military specialist at the Brookings Institution, said the need for contractors to support the Iraq transition teams is linked to the shortage of such officers in the U.S. Army at a time when it is also expanding. "There are insufficient field-grade officers in our own service, and we need the captains and majors as we increase our own ground forces," he said.
More generally, company grade officers (first and second lieutenants as well as captains, and West Point grads and others all combined) have not been leaving the force at a greater than normal rate.
I wouldn't expect O'Hanlon to know this, being that this "military expert" never wore a uniform, but company grade officers (lieutenants and captains) grow up to be field grade officers. That is if they stay in the service. And while an officer normally would have 10 years time in grade before being considered for promotion to the rank of a field grade officer, the Army's fiscal year 2008 Active Duty Major board considered O-3s who entered active duty as late as 28 August 2003, well after the start of Operation Enduring Freedom and five months after the beginning of the Iraq campaign. Junior officer's leaving the service upon completion of their initial service obligation may not be the soul reason for a lack of availability of field grades to lead MiTT teams. However, it is certainly a contributing factor.
Petraeus's response has been to focus less on his critics than on his myriad challenges. In Iraq, even with a strategy centered on protecting civilians from extremist or militia threats, he realizes that a foreign military will never be embraced -- a recognition highlighting one of the many complexities of counterinsurgency. "Every army of liberation has a half-life after which it turns into an army of occupation," he said. "You can extend that half-life by being considerate of the population, respectful of the population, understanding of it, doing what are clearly good deeds, being sensitive to the conduct of operations, and try to limit very, very much the collateral damage and so forth. But over time, again, you are not one of them. And inevitably there will be some friction as a result of that and some resentment as a result of that. No country wants, again, an occupying army on their soil."
Over the last two days, both RockRichard and Jon Soltz have posted diaries here regarding President Bush's plan to increase troop strength in Afghanistan. Already we are seeing a number of issues with how they are doing this.
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said.
First of all, why are we waiting until next year? Second, how can we make commitments to international allies now based on predictions of what our next president will do regarding troop strength? And of course, where are these troops going to come from? This last question is where the conflicting stories begin.
This is from the same New York Times article, May 3rd:
They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.
ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT - The United States intends to send many more combat forces to Afghanistan next year, regardless of whether troop levels in Iraq are cut further this year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.
Until now, the heavy commitment of U.S. forces in Iraq has been a constraint on the ability to increase U.S. troop levels in Afghanistan. But Gates said he did not believe that would be the case in 2009.
WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon has concluded it can't send additional troops to Afghanistan until sizable numbers of forces withdraw from Iraq, a senior military official said Monday.
U.S. troop levels in both Iraq and Afghanistan are already at or near their highest levels since the start of the two wars. The administration's decision to freeze troop levels in Iraq after the last of the 30,000 "surge" troops depart this summer has left Pentagon officials with few options for finding more forces for Afghanistan.
In other words, according to our military leadership, the next president will have to reduce troop numbers in Iraq, regardless of who that may be.
The number of suicides among veterans of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may exceed the combat death toll because of inadequate mental health care, the U.S. government's top psychiatric researcher said.
(From the diaries, with minor edits - promoted by Brandon Friedman)
The VA bureaucracy fails again. In this specific instance, an 89 year-old World War II vet committed suicide in front of a Veterans Outpatient Clinic in Greenville, South Carolina. He did so holding a letter by the VA denying his disability claim.
An 89-year-old World War II veteran bought six bullets from a Greenville pawnshop on Thursday before fatally shooting himself outside a nearby veterans' clinic, authorities said.
Grover Cleveland Chapman died of a gunshot wound to the head in what's believed to be a suicide at the Veterans Outpatient Clinic on Augusta Road, said Greenville County Chief Deputy Coroner Mike Ellis.
Employees heard a pop and went outside to find Chapman with a head wound and a handgun between his legs, Ellis said. Chapman, a patient at the clinic, was the only injury reported, said Greenville County Sheriff's Lt. Shea Smith.
Grover Cleveland Chapman told his family,"No matter what I apply for at the VA, they turn me down," she recalled.
Harriett Chapman sees her father's April 24 death as his way of sending a message about the medical care offered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
While staff at the clinic treated him well, he'd recently lost two battles in a continuous struggle to claim medical benefits, she said.
"He felt like the VA turned its back on him and a lot of other veterans," Harriett Chapman said.
He learned in a phone call on the Wednesday before his death that he was going to have to travel to Columbia for medical tests, although he'd been hoping for a waiver that would've allowed him to get them done closer to home, Harriett Chapman said
More bad news came hours later when he received a letter saying he'd been denied "100 percent disability," she said. If he'd been approved, the Veterans Administration would have picked up more of his medical bills, she said.
Grover Cleveland Chapman had the letter with him when he shot himself, Harriett Chapman said.
Unfortunately, due to the influx of new veterans and the fact that the VA Bureaucracy has resisted attempts by VA staff to prepare for these new patients, veterans of previous wars are being shoved to the back of the line. Thus, through purposeful underfunding even the greatest generation will suffer as America turns it's back on veterans of all generations who are unable to work the system.
Sometimes it's just flat-out funny to watch the Bush administration spin when it comes to military operations. The New York Times reported this weekend that the U.S. could see a surge of troops into Afghanistan. Surely, groups like VoteVets.org have to be happy with that, right? I mean, since our inception in 2006, we've put a top priority on taking Afghanistan more seriously.
Except, this isn't a "surge," it's caulk. You know, the stuff you use to fill the gaps.
Here's why. Our NATO allies are slowly pulling out of Afghanistan, leaving forces short. Even as the Bush administration begged them to send more troops, our allies promised a couple of thousand, on a very short term basis. That's a heck of a lot less than the 7,000 we were asking for. Not only that, but those who did promise more troops are planning to pull out completely later this year, or early next year.
So, we're just making up the shortfall. And yet, the administration seems to be pushing the line that the US, after the Afghanistan surge, will have the highest number of US forces there - 40,000 - since the initial invasion. Of course it will represent the highest number of US Troops - it has to, now that our allies are bailing. In reality, it's just a wash.
The fact of the matter is that until we begin to take our global alliances seriously again, until we make it politically popular for world leaders to work with the US again, we'll continue to bleed aid from foreign nations in our global commitments. It's not just Iraq, either (though that seems to be the main thing that's made the US so unpopular around the world). It's not making a serious commitment to combating global warming. It's a lack of commitment to human rights and the Geneva Conventions. It's beating other nations over the head saying, "You're either with us or against us," but using real diplomacy with our allies and foes, to convince them that our fight is their fight too.
To continue down that Bush course, as John McCain seems to want to do, means further alienation of our allies. That means they'll continue to leave our side. And that means that not just in Afghanistan, but any other security crisis down the road, we'll be on our own.
There's not enough caulk in our arsenal to handle that.
Over the weekend I posted a diary concerning Maliki's delegation to Iran. Representatives of the Maliki government met in Iran to discuss that government's involvement in the training of Shiite militias. It seems that this delegation, among other things, has come to a consensus regarding the activites of the Iranian government in the training of Iraqi militias.
BAGHDAD, May 4 -- The Iraqi government said Sunday that it has "concrete evidence" Iran is fomenting violence in Iraq and that a high-level panel had been formed to document the proof.
Taken by itself, this is a situation of concern. However, the Shi'ite really starts to hit the fan when you factor in other information as well. First of all, there are three main questions that need to be answered. One, how is Iran aiding these militias? Is it through the supply of weapons, training, or logistical and operational support? Two, what is the Iraqi government's strategy for dealing with this? And most importantly, what is the US government planning in response? Government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said the following:
"There is an interference and evidence that they have interfered in Iraqi affairs," Dabbagh said in an interview arranged by a U.S. official. When asked how he would characterize the proof that Iranian weapons are flowing into Iraq, he said: "It is a concrete evidence."
This is an attempt to clarify remarks made earlier in the day regarding Iranian involvement. Along with the supply of weaponry, there is proof that Iran is also providing training to Iraqi militias.
The New York Times is reporting a training camp that is located inside Iran.
BAGHDAD - Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.
As far as the Iraqi government's position regarding this, Ali al-Dabbagh provides some insight:
"We can't ignore or deny we are neighbors. We do not want to be pushed in a struggle with any country, especially Iran," he told a news conference.
"We are fed up with past tensions that we have paid a costly price for because some parties have pushed Iraq (in the past) to take an aggressive attitude to Iran."
So this brings the final and most important question: what is the US response? Well, according to former UN ambassador John Bolton a strike on Iran would be the "prudent thing to do."
I think this is a case where the use of military force against a training camp to show the Iranians we're not going to tolerate this is really the most prudent thing to do. Then the ball would be in Iran's court to draw the appropriate lesson to stop harming our troops.
The US military is drawing up plans for a "surgical strike" against an insurgent training camp inside Iran if Republican Guards continue with attempts to destabilise Iraq, western intelligence sources said last week. One source said the Americans were growing increasingly angry at the involvement of the Guards' special-operations Quds force inside Iraq, training Shi'ite militias and smuggling weapons into the country.
Along with this, there is also the buildup of Camp Delta, in Kut, Iraq 37 miles from the Iranian border.
There has been no public announcement. But two weeks ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers posted modifications to an earlier notice that disclosed it is seeking construction companies or joint ventures interested in bidding to design and build two "life support areas" at Camp Delta -- one to house 2,000 troops and the other 4,000.
So, what effect will this have overall? If America bombs Iran, what will be the effect on soldiers in Iraq, especially those at Camp Delta? Will there be an Iranian response? Will it be a military response, or an economic one? Or both? And of course, would they strike us here at home?
But the larger question is this: What should we do?
Michael O'Hanlon thinks he knows a lot about the military and the war in Iraq. The problem is that he's exceedingly Kagan-like in his propensity for drawing wrong conclusions about both after spending most of his time in the library, and a few days with the troops in Green Zone chow halls. Like when he went to Iraq for eight days and returned to tell us what an expert it made him.
O'Hanlon was at it again this weekend, giving us his latest update on the State of the Military for the Washington Times. Again, O'Hanlon's comments are both wildly off the mark and puzzling. Let's take a look.
Michael O'Hanlon says:
In fact, to date, our military is holding up reasonably well under the immense strain. By most measures of quality, it still looks roughly comparable to say the early years of the Reagan buildup -- if not necessarily as strong as its typical state of the late Reagan years or the 1990s.
::
But at a strategic level, the state of the force is not so bad as to necessitate an immediate change in our approaches to fighting wars.
That's some strange commentary when you consider that less than two months ago Army Vice Chief of Staff General Richard Cody said this while testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee:
Today's Army is out of balance. The current demand for our forces in Iraq and Afghanistan exceeds the sustainable supply and limits our ability to provide ready forces for other contingencies. ::
Given the current theater demand for Army forces, we are unable to provide a sustainable tempo of deployments for our Soldiers and Families. Soldiers, Families, support systems, and equipment are stretched and stressed by the demands of lengthy and repeated deployments, with insufficient recovery time. Equipment used repeatedly in harsh environments is wearing out more rapidly than programmed. Army support systems, designed for the pre-9/11 peacetime Army, are straining under the accumulation of stress from six years at war. Overall, our readiness is being consumed as fast as we build it.
And remember how O'Hanlon said above that "the state of the force is not so bad as to necessitate an immediate change in our approaches to fighting wars?" Well, this is how General Cody put it in his last paragraph:
If unaddressed, this lack of balance poses a significant risk to the All-Volunteer Force and degrades the Army's ability to make a timely response to other contingencies.
But Cody isn't the only military officer to refute O'Hanlon's crazy-happy talk. From CNN:
The Iraq war has strained U.S. forces to the point where they could not fight another large-scale war, according to a survey of military officers.
Of those surveyed, 88 percent believe the demands of the Iraq war have "stretched the U.S. military dangerously thin."
That doesn't make it sound like the forces are "holding up reasonably well." But O'Hanlon continued:
While there are equipment shortages and maintenance depot queues of equipment due to the ongoing wars, Congress has been generous enough with supplemental appropriations that these situations are not dire.
Obviously O'Hanlon has a very Iraq-centric viewpoint, because Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff took a different slant on the resource issue in March:
If the current round of fighting subsides and the U.S. withdrawals from Iraq go ahead as planned, Mullen says, he is exploring the idea of shifting troops to Afghanistan -- an effort that he says is vastly under-resourced.
O'Hanlon then tackles the issue of retention:
There has been a recent rumor that West Point graduates have been leaving the service at drastically increased rates as soon as their minimal obligations are satisfied.
In fact, this appears not to be true.
The last year for which data are available as of this writing (the class of 2002, which was eligible to leave the service as of 2007), showed a 68 percent re-enlistment rate, only 4 percentage points below the 1990s average.
More generally, company grade officers (first and second lieutenants as well as captains, and West Point grads and others all combined) have not been leaving the force at a greater than normal rate.
Not true? Even coming from a Very Serious Person known for spouting Bush administration talking points, this is absurd. The Washington Post reported in October 2007:
The Army is offering cash bonuses of up to $35,000 to retain young officers serving in key specialties -- including military intelligence, infantry and aviation -- in an unprecedented bid to forestall a critical shortage of officer ranks that have been hit hard by frequent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Army officials said that lengthy and repeated war-zone tours -- the top reason younger officers leave the service -- plus the need for thousands of new officers as the Army moves forward with expansion plans have contributed to a projected shortfall of about 3,000 captains and majors for every year through 2013.
O'Hanlon also fails to take into consideration that the flow of officers leaving the service has been stanched recently through the use of repeated and increased stop-loss policies. In fact, less than two weeks ago USA Today reported on this situation:
The Army has accelerated its policy of involuntary extensions of duty to bolster its troop levels, despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates' order last year to limit it, Pentagon records show.
Gates directed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the service secretaries to minimize mandatory tour extensions, known as "stop loss," in January 2007. By May, the number of soldiers affected by the policy had dropped to a three-year low of 8,540.
Since then, the number of soldiers forced to remain in the Army rose 43% to 12,235 in March. The reliance on stop loss has increased as the military has sent more troops to Iraq and extended tours to 15 months to support an escalation in U.S. forces ordered by President Bush.
O'Hanlon also glosses over the fact that many stay in the Army out of fear of being involuntarily mobilized off the IRR, as has happened to tens of thousands of soldiers since 2001.
Even before the bonuses and before the stop-losses really set in, the New York Times was reporting the Army's own data in 2006:
Young Army officers, including growing numbers of captains who leave as soon as their initial commitment is fulfilled, are bailing out of active-duty service at rates that have alarmed senior officers. Last year, more than a third of the West Point class of 2000 left active duty at the earliest possible moment, after completing their five-year obligation.
It was the second year in a row of worsening retention numbers, apparently marking the end of a burst of patriotic fervor during which junior officers chose continued military service at unusually high rates.
Mirroring the problem among West Pointers, graduates of reserve officer training programs at universities are also increasingly leaving the service at the end of the four-year stint in uniform that follows their commissioning.
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The statistics are even more striking among West Point graduates, who receive an Ivy League-quality education at taxpayer expense - and, in the view of many senior officers and West Point alumni, owe the nation and the Army a debt of loyalty beyond the initial five years of active duty.
The retention rate at the five-year mark for the West Point class of 1999 was 71.9 percent in 2004, down from 78.1 percent for the previous year's class. And for the class of 2000, the retention rate fell to 65.8 percent, meaning that last year the Army lost more than a third - 34. 2 percent - of that group of officers as they reached the end of their initial five-year commitment.
That is the highest rate of loss over the past 16 years among West Point officers reaching the five-year mark.
If I didn't know any better, I'd think Michael O'Hanlon was on the Pentagon payroll.
Six Flags over Waziristan. Hooters Mogadishu. And a nice big water park in Kandahar.
Sound far-fetched? Apparently not if you ask the Pentagon. Under orders from the Bush administration, the U.S. military now seems to be in charge of urban planning in Baghdad. And they appear to be taking steps toward fulfilling John McCain's "Hundred Years Plan" for Iraq:
BAGHDAD - Forget the rocket attacks, concrete blast walls and lack of a sewer system. Now try to imagine luxury hotels, a shopping center and even condos in the heart of Baghdad.
That's all part of a five-year development "dream list" - or what some dub an improbable fantasy - to transform the U.S.-protected Green Zone from a walled fortress into a centerpiece for Baghdad's future.
But the $5 billion plan has the backing of the Pentagon and apparently the interest of some deep pockets in the world of international hotels and development, the lead military liaison for the project told the Associated Press.
For Washington, the driving motivation is to create a "zone of influence" around the new $700 million U.S. Embassy to serve as a kind of high-end buffer for the compound, whose total price tag will reach about $1 billion after all the workers and offices are relocated over the next year.
"When you have $1 billion hanging out there and 1,000 employees lying around, you kind of want to know who your neighbors are. You want to influence what happens in your neighborhood over time," said Navy Capt. Thomas Karnowski, who led the team that created the development plan.
I guess my main question (among the many) would be this: Since when is the American military charged with driving economic development in Iraq? I wonder what the Iraqis think of the American military making plans to build lavish, Western-style condos and a shopping mall in central Baghdad. And second, even if the American government is responsible for something like this, where the fuck is the State Department?
Am I insane, or should the Pentagon be planning our exit from Baghdad--and not five billion-dollar "zones of influence?" If Iraq wants something like this, then Iraqis should get to planning. Not the U.S. military. If they want help, they can ask Condi's State Department. Or maybe the EU. Or the UN. Or their Arab neighbors. (Forget the last one. It'll never happen.)
Places like Iraq desperately need private investment, but I think we're getting a little ahead of ourselves here. And let's be honest, I don't think we're anywhere close to being ready for something like this.
Sometimes I feel like a broken record; like maybe I'm annoying you all. I'm sure you'd all agree that if you had a nickel for every time I've written that resources are being used for a pointless war with no military solution in Iraq, while they could be used for a legitimate purpose in Afghanistan, well you'd all have a lot of nickels.
But it appears today, as noted by ThinkProgress (via The New York Times), that someone at the Pentagon may finally be reading:
The New York Times reports today that the Pentagon is "considering sending as many as7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies." One official referred to it as the "re-Americanization" of the war:
They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war began more than six years ago, and would require at least a modest reduction in troops from Iraq.
First of all, kudos to the Pentagon. I'm glad that a department of highly paid civilians who supposedly specialize in military affairs have finally come up with a plan that a few war Veteran bloggers, none of whom ever ranked above Captain, have been harping on for months.
Second, I'd like to point out the reason why we have to "re-Americanize" the war in Afghanistan. For this, I refer you to a piece I wrote on February 9th:
When we take our request for troops to our fellow NATO nations, we are the guys that started Operation Clusterfuck the Iraq war and therefore we have no credibility with any other nation when it comes to defense and anti-terrorism issues (and also human rights issues, but I digress...). This week I made the following statements here at VetVoice:
Yesterday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates acknowledged the same issues that are a part of the conversation we've been having here at VetVoice. From the Wall Street Journal:
Gates Links Europe's Reluctance Over Afghanistan to Iraq War
MUNICH, Germany -- Lingering anger in Europe over the U.S. invasion of Iraq explains why some allies are reluctant to heed U.S. calls for more combat troops in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday. It was his first public acknowledgment of such a link to the Iraq war. (...) "From our perspective, I worry that for many Europeans the missions in Iraq and Afghanistan are confused," he told reporters traveling with him, implicitly acknowledging a political cost of the Iraq invasion. "I think they combine the two," he added. "Many of them I think have a problem with our involvement in Iraq and project that to Afghanistan and don't understand the very different -- for them -- very different kind of threat" posed by al Qaeda in Afghanistan, as opposed to the militant group in Iraq that goes by the same name and is thought to be led by foreign terrorists linked to al Qaeda.
While it is good to see the Defense Department eventually getting it right, I'd like it more if they would manage wars (you know those places where they are sending our service members to their possible death) correctly in the first place.
So, for the record, The Pentagon is considering a partial draw down of troops in Iraq in order to support the mission in Afghanistan with 7,000 (roughly two Brigade Combat Teams) troops; a plan that has been advocated on VetVoice for as long as it has existed, and has been obvious to all of us here for years.
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"Whip smart, sassy, with a mouth as foul as a sailor's, 28-year-old Sergeant Kayla Williams. . .tells what it's like to be a female soldier in Iraq."--Booklist
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