Posted on 09/16/2004 2:15:56 PM PDT by churchillbuff
WASHINGTON (AFP) Sep 15, 2004 The US military may run out of national guard and reserve troops for the war on terrorism because of existing limits on involuntary mobilizations, a congressional watchdog agency warned in a report released Wednesday. Government Accountability Office (GAO) said the government has considered changing the policy to make members of the 1.2 million-strong guard and reserve subject to repeated involuntary mobilization so long as no single mobilization exceeds 24 consecutive months.
In commenting on the report, however, the Department of Defense (DOD) said it planned to keep its current approach.
"Under DOD's current implementation of the authority, reserve component members can be involuntarily mobilized more than once, but involuntary mobilizations are limited to a cumulative total of 24 months," the report said.
"If DOD's implementation of the partial mobilization authority restricts the cumulative time that reserve component forces can be mobilized, then it is possible that DOD will run out of forces," the report said.
The guard and reserves are crucial to the US war effort because they include specialized units such as military police, intelligence and civil affairs that are in high demand but short supply in the active duty force.
The Pentagon also has turned to guard and reserve to ease the strain on active duty infantry divisions that have had to deploy repeatedly to Iraq.
More than 47,600 members of the guard and reserve were serving in Iraq as of August 1, about a third of the 140,000-member US force there. When those who are deployed in Afghanistan and rear areas are added, the total is in excess of 66,000, according to Pentagon figures.
Since September 11, 2003, more than 335,000 guard and reserves have been involuntarily mobilized for active duty -- 234,000 from the army alone, according to the report.
"The Department of Defense cannot currently meet its global commitments without sizeable participation from its national guard and reserve members," the GAO said in a cover letter to the report.
The GAO said the Pentagon has projected it will continuously have about 100,000 to 150,000 reserve members mobilized over the next three to five years.
The Pentagon considered increasing the pool of available guard and reserve troops by changing its mobilization policy.
"Under such a revised implementation, DOD could have mobilized its reserve component forces for less than 24 consecutive months, sent them home for an unspecified period and then remobilized them, repeating this cycle indefinitely and providing an essentially unlimited flow of forces," the report said.
Piecemeal policy changes already undertaken to increase the pool of available guard and reserve troops have created uncertainties among reservists that could affect retention, recruitment and the long-term viability of the reserves, the report noted.
"There are already indications that some portions of the force are being stressed," it said.
The army national guard, for instance, has failed to meet recruiting goals in 14 of 20 months from October 2002 through May 2004, the report said. It was 7,800 soldiers below its recruiting goal at the end of fiscal 2003.
In a report released yesterday, the U.S. General Accountability Office said the Defense Department needs to fix its ``piecemeal'' approach to mobilizing military reserve units now that they are shouldering such a large burden of fighting the global war on terrorism.
More than 335,000 reservists have been called to active duty since the Sept. 11 terror attacks, and reliance on them may remain high for years to come, the GAO said in a report to Congress. The Defense Department now activates reservists for up to 24 months and ``will run out of forces'' unless it extends tours of duty, the report says.
350,000
There are about 350,000 National Guard members nationwide, privately employed people who serve part-time in the Army National Guard or Air National Guard, subject to call by state governors or the president. There are another 850,000 members of the military Army Reserve, Air Force Reserve, Naval Reserve, Marine Corps Reserve, Coast Guard Reserve who also lead civilian lives while serving part-time subject to call up.
Bush's call-up of National Guard and reserve soldiers for the war in Iraq is the largest since World War II, military analysts and soldiers' advocacy groups.
Over the three years since the Sept. 11 attacks, more than 423,025 Reserve and National Guard members have been mobilized, according to the U.S. Labor Department. In the meantime, 255,000 have been released from active duty.
The Defense Department said yesterday that 167,356 National Guard and Reserve personnel are now on active duty. The Pentagon projects it will need to call up 100,000 to 150,000 more over the next three to five years, the GAO report said.
`Unprecedented'
Elaine Donnelly, 57, president of the Center for Military Readiness in Livonia, Michigan, a group that concentrates on military personnel issues, said the level of reliance on National Guard and Reserve members in Iraq is ``unprecedented.''
``I don't think we've ever seen anything like it, mainly because of the downsizing of the U.S. military after the first Gulf War,'' said Donnelly, who served under Bush's father on a presidential commission studying on the role of women in the armed forces.
The GAO report, requested by a Senate Armed Services subcommittee, says the Pentagon's policies create ``uncertainties for reserve component members concerning the likelihood of their mobilization, the length of their service commitments, the length of their overseas rotations and the types of missions that they would be asked to perform.''
The vagueness of the policies may hurt the ability of units to recruit and keep members, the report says. The Army National Guard failed to meet its recruiting goal during 14 of the 20 months through May 2004, and it ended fiscal year 2003 about 7,800 soldiers below its target, the report says.
GAO Report
The GAO focused on the Army, which has provided most reservists for active duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, almost 234,000.
Senator Saxby Chambliss, a Georgia Republican who heads the subcommittee that requested the report, said it revealed ``weaknesses'' in the Pentagon's ``policies and procedures for reserve mobilization.''
The present deployments have their roots in an increased reliance on part-time soldiers by the Pentagon that began with the Balkan peacekeeping mission in the 1990s.
After military cutbacks following the Gulf War and the end of the Cold War, ``the National Guard and Reserves actually told the Congress they wanted to have more missions,'' Donnelly said.
President George H.W. Bush mobilized 265,322 National Guard and reservists by executive order in 1990 and 1991 for Operation Desert Shield-Desert Storm.
From 1995 to 1999, President Bill Clinton deployed 19,093 reservists to Bosnia. Clinton mobilized 9,628 voluntary reservists to Kosovo in 1999.
Draft hippies.
And who was responsible for that, folks? (Hint it wasn't GHWB or GWB...)
Screw the French and their crap propaganda AFP.
I guess Clinton cutting the military has nothing to do with the shortage in troops huh?
Draft (demo-rat) hippies.
(c:
Fine, but Bloomberg is a US news agency, and it reports the same thing - - - with a direct quote from GAO.
That paragraph is from Bloomberg news - and the GAP - not from any French news agency.
CAN YOU NAME THIS COUNTRY?
709,000 REGULAR (ACTIVE DUTY) PERSONNEL.
293,000 RESERVE TROOPS.
EIGHT STANDING ARMY DIVISIONS.
20 AIR FORCE AND NAVY AIR WINGS WITH 2,000 COMBAT
AIRCRAFT.
232 STRATEGIC BOMBERS.
19 STRATEGIC BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES WITH 3,114 NUCLEAR WARHEADS ON 232 MISSILES.
500 ICBMs WITH 1,950 WARHEADS.
FOUR AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND 121 SURFACE COMBAT SHIPS
AND SUBMARINES PLUS ALL THE SUPPORT BASES, SHIPYARDS, AND
LOGISTICAL ! ASSETS NEEDED TO SUSTAIN SUCH A NAVAL FORCE.
IS THIS COUNTRY-
RUSSIA ? NO
CHINA ? NO
GREAT BRITAIN ? NO
FRANCE ? WRONG AGAIN
THESE ARE THE AMERICAN MILITARY FORCES THAT WERE ELIMINATED DURING THE ADMINISTRATION OF BILL CLINTON AND AL GORE. AND THEIR ELIMINATION WAS 100% SUPPORTED BY JOHN KERRY. THESE HE DID VOTE ON!
You won't get any argument from me. I voted against Clinton twice. But that doesn't change the fact that, according to the GAO, the guard is being stretched thin right now because so many are sent to Iraq. I've seen reports that say governors are complaining they don't have enough guardsmen at home for possible emergencies.
I see you've renewed your Charlie Rangle scare tactics again today.
That's a good point, but I'm still not completely sure why Bush and Rumsfeld seem to be so resistant to a much-needed reexpansion of the military, now that we're fully involved in a world war and it's painfully obvious that we downsized our forces too much.
When did Charlie Rangle start running the GAO? You're saying they're leftist liars. They work for the Republican Congress. And the DOD isn't disputing the figures in the report. I guess they're all "leftists"
President Bush doesn't think a draft is necessary but Charlie Rangle and Churchstuff seem to think it is...and they try to scare people into believing it.
Hey, we all know how important this election is to America. That's why the liberals and their willing allies are doing everything they can to dupe the public...often with the same tired old scare tactics.
Elaine Donnelly - who's quoted in the article, saying that "We've never seen" such a reliance on the guard before. Is she a leftist "Rangle scare-monger"? Don't think so. Do a google on her. She's a conservative pro-defense analyst.
Nope, she's correct. You're the one who is the Rangle scare-monger.
Terrorists, like other predators and scavengers smell weakness....weakness emboldens them...strength scares them...and causes them to look for weaker victims
Strength scares terrorists...which is why terrorists want Kerry to win...and why terrorists hate GW Bush so much....
imo
I didn't write this report. The GAO did. Sorry to intrude on your world with some facts. I should have known better.
Because I post an article that quotes a conservative defense analyst and the GAO? You've got to do better than that !
You didn't write the scare tactic "draft" statement yesterday either. You simply posted it then pushed it to suite your agenda.
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