Posted on 12/06/2004 8:02:26 PM PST by Happy2BMe
10,000 Troops Get Iraq Extension
Associated Press
December 2, 2004
WASHINGTON - With the insurgency still a threat to Iraq's planned elections, the U.S. force is about to expand to its highest level of the war - even higher than the initial invading force in March 2003.
The force will grow from 138,000 today to about 150,000 by mid-January, the Pentagon said Wednesday.
Extra troops are needed to bolster security before the national elections scheduled for Jan. 30. The increase in troop strength also underscores the fact that, despite enormous effort and cost, American commanders have yet to train and equip enough Iraqis for security duty.
Lt. Gen. Lance Smith, deputy commander of Central Command, which is responsible for U.S. military operations throughout the Middle East, told reporters at the Pentagon last month that the insurgents have managed to intimidate many Iraqis into not cooperating with the Americans.
The expansion of the U.S. force also recalls assertions made by some Bush administration officials when the invasion was launched that although stabilizing the country would not be easy or cheap, it certainly would not require more U.S. troops than it took to topple Baghdad.
s it turns out, the post-invasion period has been far costlier in blood and treasure than almost anyone predicted. When President Bush declared major combat operations were over May 1, 2003, the United States had about 148,000 troops in Iraq - slightly more than when the war began two months earlier and more than were there when Baghdad fell in early April.
The Pentagon said Wednesday that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld approved a plan to send 1,500 soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division from Fort Bragg, N.C., to Iraq this month and to extend by 60 days the combat tours of about 10,400 soldiers and Marines in Iraq who were to come home in January.
Most of those whose tours are being extended will serve two months longer than the 12-month tours the Army set as a standard limit to avoid putting too much stress on troops and their families.
The 12,000-troop increase is to last only until March, but it says much about the strength and resiliency of an insurgency that U.S. military planners did not foresee even a year ago, when they were focused on capturing deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Pentagon officials said they preferred to expand the force in Iraq mainly by keeping some troops there longer rather than sending thousands of fresh troops from the United States.
"They are the most experienced and best-qualified forces to sustain the momentum of post-Fallujah operations and to provide for additional security for the upcoming elections," a Pentagon statement said.
The military normally is reluctant to extend soldiers' combat tours because of the potential negative effect it could have on their families, and thus on their willingness to remain in uniform. In this case, Gen. George Casey, the most senior U.S. commander in Iraq, decided it was necessary to keep up pressure on the insurgents while providing security for the elections.
One unit, the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, is being extended for the second time. Its soldiers originally were told they would be going home in November at the end of a 10-month assignment, but in October they got the news they would remain until mid-January. Now they are being extended until mid-March.
Rumsfeld's decision also applies to:
-About 4,400 troops of the 2nd Brigade of the 25th Infantry Division, which is operating in north-central Iraq. They will stay until mid-March, instead of departing in early January. Those soldiers' home bases are mostly in Hawaii.
-About 2,300 members of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, based in Okinawa, Japan, Hawaii and California, who will stay until mid-March instead of leaving in January.
-About 160 soldiers of the 66th Transportation Company, based in Germany. They were due to depart Iraq in early January but instead will stay until early March.
The Army generally relies upon the 82nd Airborne to keep one of its three brigades on short-notice alert year-round to deploy abroad if there is a crisis. Shortly before the October elections in Afghanistan, about 600 members of the 82nd Airborne were sent there to strengthen security.
Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., a critic of the administration's handling of the war, said the Pentagon's announcement confirmed that the effort to stabilize Iraq would take years, with no certainty of success.
"This announcement makes it clear that commanders in Iraq need more troops and that this will be a long and very expensive process for the United States," Reed said. "It is still not clear whether Iraq will emerge from this chronic violence as a viable and stable country."
It is good to hear that my one example was not universal. The young Marine I spoke with may have been accurate regarding his environment but that was a limited perspective. It was still somewhat of a shock to me however.
My grandfather was away in WW2 for 3 yrs. This is as serious, actually more serious, of a war.
I think my father was overseas for 4 years during WWII. My son has been in Iraq since March. He is supposed to come home next March but if his tour is extended his wife and I fully understand the responsibility that comes with being in a military family.
Well, I was imprecise and you caught me on it. That came from typing the whole post and losing it, then having to try to type it in half the time!
What I should have said was that one sometimes has to make choices where available resources are not the primary factor in the decision. I did not imply that anyone ever should ignore that. And I do not believe that we did here.
One often has to make a calculation of risks versus benefits in a situation, weighing available resources (among other things) against other factors such as windows of opportunity, etc.
You do not know (or may choose not to know) that a course is doomed from the start due to insufficient resources. A pilot who takes off on a risky mission near the edge of fuel availability (say in a helicopter to rescue a downed pilot or trapped soldiers) may make a calulation that they have just enough to make it there and back. Enroute, they encounter headwinds, can't find the target, get lost, etc. A perfect example is the rescue helicopter that went down in the Perfect Storm. They calculated and lost. They did not know their mission was doomed when they made that calculation. Situational elements change fluidly (again, I am not lecturing you, you would be in a better position to lecture me on this) and you find yourself behind the eight ball due to optimistic assessments (could be the case here) or other factors beyond your control.
Even powerful, competent and responsible world powers cannot see the future and set a pre-ordained path all the time.
Do you agree that the uprising of the insurgents in Iraq is not a popular uprising?
And by the way, Semper-thank you for the reasoned and civil discussion. I found people like you on this site, that is why I started coming back, and keep coming back. Reasonable people can agree to disagree, as long as we can keep talking and not break out tin-foil hat rhetoric, blood-for-oil and the notion that Dick Cheney was steering the hijacked planes on 9/11 by remote control!
The two great unifers and dividers are blood and God. Unfortunately, we are growing more and more diverse, with neither blood nor God to bind us. IMO, the only thing that is holding America together is the desire to make a great deal of money so as to buy a great many things. If we ever get into another Depression, this frail bond will snap and only God knows what will happen.
Diversity is not a source of strength. It's actually unnatural.
Let's call them MohamMadmen
Multiculturalism = Multicountrialism = Disunity = Domestic Untranquility
I agree that we must get out, but disagree the election won't make a difference. It will make a difference in that it will enable us to get out. The elections will enable us to get out because it won't be our country - as much - after the elections. For the first time in eons, the Iraqis will feel (or should feel) that they have a little ownership in their country. We must be liberators not occupiers, and since any American southerner/red-stater knows that responsibility goes with liberty, we must relinquish responsibilty for Iraq in proportion to our divestment of it. Elections = divestment.
No need for this extension. Bush and Rummy both say we have plenty of troops, must be a mistake somewhere.
Yes. I believe that many of the insurgents are from outside Iraq adding to the radical element within. The longer we are there, however, the harder it is to get out. We are a magnet for all the radical Muslims in the region and it seems as though we have gotten into an impossible situation - we lose if we leave and we lose if we stay. I thought this war had that potential even before it started - but, I would love to be proven wrong about that.
thank you for the reasoned and civil discussion.
You are welcome. I feel about the same as you on this subject - there are too many posting here who can't seem to handle opinions contrary to their own and exhibit the immaturity of personally attacking those who express that which they don't like or can't understand.
"And it wasn't people in tin-foil hats who brought to light that the Iraqi regime was paying money to people engaged in terrorist acts (suicide bombers)."
You mean to families of anti-Israeli suicide bombers? If Israel had a problem with that, Israel should have dealt with it. Why was it our mission to start a war in behalf of Israel?
"The world changed on 9/11. The limits on what we realistically thought terrorists might do were obliterated. The terrorists hoped to kill 20,000 people, and we were lucky it didn't happen because the Twin Towers weren't full at the time of the attack. Do you really think they wouldn't have detonated a nuclear device if they could have got their hands on one? Who in the Mideast "might" have had or be developing nuclear weapons? If the terrorists could have got a suitcase full of Anthrax, do you think for one second they would not have used it? Who in the Middle East had or was developing substances like that?"
No one I or anyone else knows of. You sound like you still think Iraq was behind the 9/11 attacks, was developing nuclear and biological weapons, etc. Even the administration has abandoned those arguments.
"the administration did not do this because they thought it would help them politically."
You are being very generous.
Why, thank you.
I think.
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