Posted on 12/15/2006 6:58:38 AM PST by Man of the Right
Iraq and Afghanistan Are Straining the Force, Chief of Staff Warns
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation's main ground force. In particularly blunt testimony, Schoomaker said the Army began the Iraq war "flat-footed" with a $56 billion equipment shortage and 500,000 fewer soldiers than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Echoing the warnings from the post-Vietnam War era, when Gen. Edward C. Meyer, then the Army chief of staff, decried the "hollow Army," Schoomaker said it is critical to make changes now to shore up the force for what he called a long and dangerous war.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
But we already spent the Peace Dividend. Several times over.
Why are we hearing this now...why didn't we hear it four years ago. Nevermind, I know why: Donald Rumsfeld is why we didn't hear it!
Picture vertically-challenged Dukakis sitting in that tank turret. Grow they must!
We have 1.4 million active duty soldiers plus 1.2 million in the reserves. Only 150,000 of them are doing useful work in Iraq. Put a cork in it.
You can't wage war successfully without political support in a democracy. Bush lost it in Iraq.
I agree. In restrospect, Bush 41's 1992 Quadrennial Defense Review was the most disastrous defense policy document in modern military history. He cut the Army from 36 to 24 division equivalents and the active Army from 18 to 10. We could use those troops now.
The way to get along in the millitary is to go along. Schoonmaker's testimony was courageous. His troops are being called back to serve their third and in a few cases, fourth, combat tours in Iraq. Enough is enough.
I think the president took a gamble that Iraq would be conquered and under control fairly quickly. A gamble that may have been worth taking, and may even have been visionary, but one that he lost.
Losing the gamble changes everything, which is why we're hearing this now.
You're parroting the Democrat talking points, which were engineered to put the Democrats in power at the expense of America's self interests. The Democrats want to loot the country.
The vast majority of those soldiers, particularly those in the Reservers, are Combat Support and Combat Service Support soldiers. We need more COMBAT brigades, 3 or 4 minimum, to take the load of the combat arms soldiers that are bearing the brunt. We've already realigned artillery and MP soldiers to perform the grunt's work and it's still not enough. It would be foolish to dip any further into CS and CSS units for these soldiers and missions.
And then consider our future requirements that may soon exist outside Iraq?
Another defeatist thread on Free Republic. It's amazing how folks are bellyaching. Insurgencies take five to eleven years to defeat. We've got genuises here who are ready to bug out now three years in to a counter-insurgency--for what? So we can return in a few more years with a military that is tanned, rested and ready?
I agree. Tenet told him that Saddam was close to going nuclear, so he invaded. When a thorough search disproved the intelligence, he switched to democratizing Iraq. This has improved impossible because there is no Iraqi nation-state. Now his creativity and room for political manuever is at an end. His successors will have to clean up his mess.
You claim that it takes five to eleven years to defeat an insurgency and I think you may be right. Do you also think it's a great idea to rotate the same combat arms soldiers in and out of that theater, as well as lengthy call-ups for Reserve and Guard soldiers, without expanding the force? There are plans afoot to re-deploy soldiers before their 14 month off-rotation period is up.
Our mission now is boots on the ground and UAV/UCAVs aren't going to fit the bill.
We're in the robotics age. We aren't fighting WW2 anymore. I'd rather spend an extra $52 billion on autonomous sniper machines, scout vehicles, virtual fences, moving land mines. Machines don't complain to Congress. Rumsfeld was trying to go in this direction.
The Us needs to shift from confronting our enemies directly to indirectly by sponsoring proxies backed by US intel/firepower. That is how Iran and Saudi Arabia is attacking the US presense in Iraq. Our proxies in the Middle East will be the Kurds, Shiites who do not support Sadr, Sunnis in Anbar Province of Iraq, non Muslim blacks in Sudan, non Arab Muslim blacks in Sudan, Ethiopia, the Somali warlords who oppose Jihadist Somalis, and free Aghans all willing to pick up a rifle and fight the our enemies in the Middle East asssuming we are willing to send the experts and weapons.
No, I'm not in the military and I don't have a loved one in Iraq. There is an issue of equity: 1% of the U.S. population is sustaining 100% of the sacrifice. But the major issue is national defense. What do we do if our ground forces are needed elsewhere -- in the Persian Gulf, the Korean peninsula, or a contingency not yet envisioned? Future wars will be fought come as you are. Yesterday, the Army Chief of Staff testified he has only 90,000 non-deployed troops. Does that concern you?
Machines are incapable of patrolling in the way an infantry soldier can, and that's the brunt of the work being done. If you want to give those soldiers enhanced tools for the job, that's fine, but you're not going to replace the grunt any time soon. Stop watching so much of the Discovery channel.
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