Joseph Sarandos
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Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
U.S. soldiers face longer tours in Iraq: Pentagon
Wed Apr 11, 2007 5:28PM EDT
By Andrew Gray
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. soldiers will serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of one year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Wednesday, the latest sign of the strain the wars have placed on the U.S. military.
Gates said the move would allow the military to sustain the boost in U.S. forces in Iraq, ordered by President George W. Bush in January, for about a year if desired but it was too early to say how long the increased troop levels actually would be needed.
"Our forces are stretched, there's no question about that," Gates said.
"I realize this decision will ask a lot of our Army troops and their families," he said.
Gates portrayed the policy as an effort to make deployments more predictable for troops and their families. Previously, the Pentagon has had to extend tours of duty for individual units or send them earlier than planned to maintain force levels.
But the administration's critics said the decision was a blow to the military, the troops and their families.
"This new policy will be an additional burden to an already overstretched Army," said Rep. Ike Skelton, a Democrat who chairs the Armed Services Committee in the House of Representatives.
"I think this will have a chilling effect on recruiting, retention and readiness. We also must not underestimate the enormous negative impact this will have on Army families."
Democrats seeking an end to the unpopular Iraq war want Bush to set a timetable for withdrawal. The administration says troops can only leave when Iraq has stabilized or U.S. national security will be in jeopardy.
EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY
Gates said all troops serving in the region covered by U.S. Central Command -- stretching from East Africa across the Middle East and into Central Asia -- could expect to be deployed for up to 15 months and spend 12 months at home.
The policy is effective immediately and also applies to units already in the region, he said.
The new policy on deployments applies only to the active duty Army and not to the National Guard or Marine Corps.
National Guard troops should be mobilized for up to a year and Marines currently deploy for seven months followed by six months at home, the Pentagon says.
There are currently some 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and 25,000 in Afghanistan.
As part of Bush's plan, the U.S. military is the midst of boosting its Iraq force by 28,000 combat and support troops.
Previously, the Pentagon had enough troops in place to maintain that increase until August but many analysts expect it to last longer.
"Whether it will be kept in place depends entirely on the conditions on the ground," Gates said.
The Pentagon's goal for active duty Army troops is that they spend two years at home for every year deployed, but it has not been able to meet that target in recent years.
At the moment, Army units average about a year at home for every year deployed, Pentagon officials say.
In an effort to tackle the strains on the military, Gates earlier this year ordered an increase in the size of both the Army and the Marine Corps.
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4/12/2007, 9:40 am
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Incog4
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
"Can a Draft be far behind?"
Well, from "reading between the lines" of Gates' announcement, I'd say that a Draft is in the works.
Remembering that all other branches of the Military had remained "volunteer only" in all previous wars, and seeing that the current tour-extensions apply to only the Army, there would be "automatic" increases in the sizes of the more-preferential/more-prestigious Air Force, Navy and Marines, should the Army start conscripting "grunts" for the Infantry.
Looking back to the Nam War era, I should have and would have volunteered into the safer Air Force or Navy, had I not expected one of the deferrals that I should have been entitled to under the discretion of my local Draft Board.
I also remember that "troublesome youths" were being given the choice of going to jail as felons or going into the Army in particular (since the other branches were being "more picky" about recruits).
Aaron
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4/12/2007, 11:42 am
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
Aaron,
Your reply was both insightful and honest.
As you know, I was about to "commit" to the Air Force during the Korean War, and ended up volunteering into the Aviation Branch of the Navy, because my motivation was based on my wish to support and rescue my relatives, friends and fellow Americans who were already in harm's way over there, while I had no wish to kill Koreans, since I didn't consider that war as a threat to the people, the territory or the Constitution of America.
I'd say that I was "lucky enough" to be both "smart enough" and "fit enough" to meet or exceed the requirements of the Navy during that wartime. And as it turned out, I was also "lucky enough" that the hostilities in Korea had officially ceased shortly after my enlistment, so that I was never actually called to the frontlines. As it also happened, my 10 years+ enlistment and reenlistment had extended into the "first rumblings" of the similar war in Vietnam (making me officially a veteran of both eras), but I was also "lucky enough" to have taken my second Honorable Discharge before I would have been called to the frontlines once that involvement had escalated into the horrendous "bloodbath" and "quagmire" that you and others had been drafted into.
Looking back, I am seriously more thankful that I didn't have to kill than I am that I was not killed in either of those "wars for the sake of war" that America should not have been involved with -- especially the latter one in which our troops were being forced to kill civilians of all ages in self-defence (mixed with fear and paranoia).
Therefore, when I consider the Iraq and Afghanistan quagmires, when I read and hear about the vast numbers of Arab civilians who have been slaughtered there, and when I look to the tens of thousands of our countrymen who have been mentally and spiritually as well as physically harmed there, my personal anger is directed toward the politicians who do not care about these consequences to others who are not blood-related to themselves.
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4/12/2007, 12:49 pm
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NamVet2
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
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"Looking back, I am seriously more thankful that I didn't have to kill than I am that I was not killed in either of those "wars for the sake of war" that America should not have been involved with -- especially the latter one in which our troops were being forced to kill civilians of all ages in self-defence (mixed with fear and paranoia)."
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First let us separate Korea from Vietnam in terms of "civilian-killing" by us Americans.
In the former engagement, the terms were more conventional and the battlefields more defined, so that it was fought primarily between respectively identifiable uniformed soldiers and had produced a minimum of unintended and unavoidable "collateral civilian casualties".
Vietnam was a different scenario altogether, especially during the later phases, because of the great numbers of guerilla warriors who became involved (including some, like the Hmong, who were recruited and armed by "our side"), none of whom wore distinguishing uniforms, and because the "war" had degenerated into village-by-village and hut-by-hut "raiding parties" similar to the "sweeps" by our troops in Baghdad and other cities of Iraq.
Eventually, it became impossible for our men to distinguish between ordinary South Vietnamese civilians and guerillas, while it remained obvious to the guerrillas that uniformed Americans were the collective enemy of the South Vietnamese people, working with Hanoi to forcibly deprive them of their self-rule and their human and civil rights, along with their societal and religious traditions as a non-Communist people.
As is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American uniforms had come to represent "a dangerous and heartless, evil force" against the South Vietnamese, so that everyone wearing that uniform became a target for "fair or foul" elimination, to the ultimate degree that even young children and old women were "boobytrapped" with explosives powerful enough to take-out dozens of unsuspecting Americans at a time.
Under those circumstances, our troops had little choice other than to consider and treat every civilian as a potential "suicide bomber," which led to atrocities such as the My Lai Massacre.
Yes, it was as you said, Chief..."self-defence mixed with fear and paranoia"...that had caused good and moral Americans to resort to such animalistic behavior toward other human beings in Vietnam.
Like you said you would have been, and as I'm sure Aaron is, most of us combat-Namvets are also more regretful of and emotionally-disturbed by the killings and atrocities we'd been forced to commit against civilians than we are by the physical wounds we'd received. It will be the same for the surviving Iraq/Afghanistan combat-vets.
I'm not a man of strong religious beliefs, but I do trust in the principle that those who become involuntarily forced into unholy acts are not "charged by God" with them, but that are charged against the souls of those who ordered or forced them into doing so.
Greg
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4/13/2007, 12:59 pm
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Joseph Sarandos
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
Talk about dirty politics and outright deception? Read the last paragraph first.
With his full knowledge that the decision had already been made, that he had already approved it, and that it was ready to be implemented, Bush stood in front of a Veterans organization and lied about it, saying that such consequences to the troops and their families might or could result from “Congressional foot-dragging” with regard to granting his “no strings attached (sans any exit-timelines)” request for another $120billion to fund his wars as he sees fit.
Joseph
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http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1610587,00.html
Saturday, Apr. 14, 2007
Gates Angry, Bush Ambushed by Leak
By Mark Thompson/Washington
The Pentagon's never been able to keep a secret, but top officials were really steamed this week when some unknown defense official tipped off the press to the impending announcement that Army troops would be spending more time in combat zones. In an ideal world, commanders want to be able to tell their combat units, in their own way, that they won't be going home as early as they hoped. Instead, Army grunts got the bad news via the Internet after it leaked prematurely to reporters Tuesday night.
Army Lieutenant General Ray Odierno grumbled Friday about the rushed official announcement in a video press conference he did from Iraq with Pentagon reporters. "I know the announcement the other day was probably one that surprised" troops in harm's way and their families, he said. "We would have loved to have let our families know first before it was out in the press, and we wish we had the opportunity to do that and also talk to our soldiers first."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates put it more bluntly on Wednesday. "Some very thoughtless person in this building made the unilateral decision [Tuesday] to deny the Army the opportunity to notify unit commanders who could then talk to their troops 48 hours before we made a public announcement," Gates said. He complained as he officially announced that active-duty Army troops in Afghanistan and Iraq will stay there for 15 months, instead of the planned 12, until further notice. "And I can't tell you how angry it makes many of us that one individual would create potentially so much hardship not only for our servicemen and -women, but their families, by letting them read about something like this in the newspapers."
There had been rumors that the Army was thinking of extending its active-duty units in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, the Army had recommended the move to Gates recently as a way of ensuring that units would get at least a year at home between deployments to war zones (traditionally, they have gotten two years at home for each year overseas, but the Pentagon chopped that in half after the Iraq war began, and some units have been redeploying after less than a year at home).
Of course, soldiers and their families weren't the only ones surprised by the Pentagon announcement. Just hours before the news leaked out, President Bush complained about Democratic congressional foot-dragging that has held up approval of a $120-billion-plus supplemental war bill. "The bottom line is this: Congress's failure to fund our troops will mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines," Bush told an American Legion audience in suburban Virginia. The next day, his Pentagon did it all by itself, without any help from anyone of either party on Capitol Hill.
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4/14/2007, 9:58 am
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Incog4
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
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First, Greg wrote:
"I'm not a man of strong religious beliefs, but I do trust in the principle that those who become involuntarily forced into unholy acts are not "charged by God" with them, but that are charged against the souls of those who ordered or forced them into doing so."
Well Greg, every religion that I know anything about says the same thing in so many words. Even the secular laws of most civilized nations agree with this principle, in holding that the committer of a crime must have been "voluntarily willing" in order for him to be punished for it.
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Also, Greg, I understand and concur with your comparisons and differentiations between the Korea and Vietnam wars, as well as with your agreement with Joseph that dying is not the worst thing that could happen during wars involving civilians.
Now I'll get back to the primary topic of this thread.
As Joseph had interpreted the preceding article, to mean that Bush has replaced the former tact of calling opponents of his war-budget “unpatriotic” with the new tact of insinuating that “the troops and their families are expecting and deserving the funding as requested” -- implying that they agree with and approve of his “I’ll do it my way” strategy for “winning” the worse-than-Vietnam quagmire in Iraq/Afghanistan -- the following article from Bloomberg solidifies the duplicitousness of Bush’s “lip service” to the sacrifices being made by the troops and their relatives, as if it hadn’t been revealed that he and his underlings had been busted for shabby treatment of the wounded and dead veterans of his falsely-justified and horrendously-mismanaged invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The question left begging an answer is how the extended duty-tours and increases in numbers of the Army grunts would or could lead to a victory for America over the civilians of the Armyless nation of Iraq. Pragmatically, all that could happen is either us killing more of them or them killing more of us, or both, with them having the advantage of being able to “recognize us on sight” because of our uniforms and equipment (as it was in Vietnam).
Bush’s feigned “sympathy for” our troops is as ingenuous as was his feigned “support of” our troops -- mere “bumpersticker slogans” to hide the true motives behind the start and continuation of this war, which included revenge against the Hussein family by the Bush family, designs on the Iraq oil-fields, personal enrichment of Bush’s political cronies via lucrative contracts, and of course serving the best interests of Israel.
It can now be added that Bush’s most pressing personal concern is to keep this war going beyond his lifetime, so as to escape the otherwise-inevitable capture, trial and conviction for his war crimes, and he’s shown beyond a shadow of doubt that he just doesn’t care if tens of thousands more of our troops get maimed and killed in the interim.
Aaron
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Bush Says Delay Over Iraq Funding Will Strain Troops (Update1)
By Holly Rosenkrantz
April 14 (Bloomberg) -- President George W. Bush, looking ahead to a meeting with lawmakers next week about a standoff on emergency funds for Iraq, said the inability to resolve differences on the issue is putting an unnecessary strain on the military.
``Our troops are waiting for the funds,'' Bush said in his weekly radio address. ``The longer Congress delays, the worse the impact on the men and women of the armed forces will be.''
Bush on April 18 will meet with congressional leaders at the White House to try to break the impasse over $100 billion in emergency funding for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
In the meantime, the Department of Defense plans to notify lawmakers that it is transferring $1.6 billion from other military accounts to make up for the shortfall caused by the delay on the spending measures.
The Republican Bush administration and the Democratic- controlled Congress are at loggerheads over paying for the Iraq war. The Senate and the House of Representatives have passed similar supplemental funding measures for the war, setting limits for the U.S. presence there. Both bills must be reconciled before the legislation is sent to the White House.
Bush has said he will veto any war-funding legislation that contains timetables for withdrawing the troops.
Funding Differences
``I recognize that Republicans and Democrats in Washington have differences over the best course in Iraq,'' Bush said. ``But our troops should not be trapped in the middle. They have been waiting for the money long enough. Congress must now pass a clean bill'' without ``artificial time lines for withdrawal.''
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Democrats are committed to providing necessary funds to U.S. forces while also demanding a new strategy for the conflict. While Democrats control both houses of Congress, they don't have enough votes to override a Bush veto.
Democrats are continuing to fight to fully fund our troops and give them a strategy for success worthy of their sacrifices,'' Reid, from Nevada, said in a statement e-mailed to reporters today. ``All the president can offer the American people is a threat to veto funding for our troops and a stubborn refusal to change his failed policies.''
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin of Michigan said earlier this week that if Bush follows through on the veto threat, Democrats probably will strip the timetable from the spending measure while keeping demands for the Iraqis to meet benchmarks for quelling sectarian violence.
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4/14/2007, 9:27 pm
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insider3
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
I’ve “cherry-picked” just these two paragraphs from Aaron’s preface to the news article immediately above:
“The question left begging an answer is how the extended duty-tours and increases in numbers of the Army grunts would or could lead to a victory for America over the civilians of the Armyless nation of Iraq. Pragmatically, all that could happen is either us killing more of them or them killing more of us, or both, with them having the advantage of being able to “recognize us on sight” because of our uniforms and equipment (as it was in Vietnam).”
“It can now be added that Bush’s most pressing personal concern is to keep this war going beyond his lifetime, so as to escape the otherwise-inevitable capture, trial and conviction for his war crimes, and he’s shown beyond a shadow of doubt that he just doesn’t care if tens of thousands more of our troops get maimed and killed in the interim.”
After lots of deep thinking, I can’t for the life of me see how “more troops for longer tours” could possibly improve America’s chances of coming out ahead in the situation as it stands in Iraq, especially since it has degenerated into a multi-sided civil war between religious civilian factions without uniformed armies, and especially since each of those factions have in common the desire to rid Iraq of “foreign presences” (meaning America and our allies). Under these circumstances, it is easy to see that MORE American troops has already resulted in more CLEAR INDIVIDUAL targets for snipers, roadside-bombers and suicide-bombers, even while each of the Iraqi civilian/religious factions are attacking each others’ mosques and other known “headquarters”. To make matters worse, NOW the so-called “Green Zone,” which contains the headquarters and living-spaces for America’s military and civilian LEADERS, has become targeted and successfully attacked by guerrilla forces with “weapons of convenience” such as explosives-laden cars and trucks.
President Bush HAS TO BE fully aware of these new circumstances, and he HAS TO REALIZE that the already-implemented “Surge” tactic has backfired into the faces of our ground-troops, but STILL he insists upon sending more infantrymen for longer duty-tours, and he HAS TO BE considering the option of a Draft should the recruitment efforts continue (as they are) to produce fewer and fewer volunteers, which all amounts to Aaron’s conclusion that Bush really doesn’t care about the life-losses of either friends or foes, as long as such losses don’t include himself or any of his own relatives.
Bob
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4/16/2007, 1:31 pm
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Incog4
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Re: Iraq/Afghanistan tours extended for U.S. Army. Can a Draft be far behind?
http://rawstory.com/printstory.php?story=5762
Murtha: President's Iraq war plan requires draft
04/18/2007 @ 3:26 pm
Filed by Michael Roston
Rep. John Murtha, a veteran of the U.S. Marines who served in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, said that President George W. Bush cannot continue to carry out his current war plans in Iraq without starting a draft.
"The president asks the impossible and the burden continues to fall on the very few. The pressure must be taken off the current force and their families who have already sacrificed so much," said Murtha today to the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, which he chairs. "If the President insists on continuing the current operational tempo and policy, then he should call for a military draft. That is the responsible thing to do.”
Murtha's full statement, which was sent to RAW STORY, is provided below.
#
Murtha calls for responsibility on the part of the President
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Congressman John P. Murtha, Chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, issued the following remarks today while discussing Army personnel issues:
“I just returned from visiting three major Army bases: Ft. Hood, Ft. Stewart and Ft. Bragg.
“What I found was that the President’s policy has forced the military to break its own rotation and deployment guidelines. Our forces have had to accelerate training, they have had to train on inadequate and insufficient equipment, and percentages have been deployed a third and fourth time.
“I discussed the length of deployments with a group of commanders who told me that more than nine months deployed in theater was harmful to them and their families. They were not complaining; rather they candidly acknowledged that after a certain amount of time, professional skills begin to diminish and extended tours could very well push soldiers and leaders beyond what is reasonable.
“I found a need for counseling for our military children and was told that the truancy rate is increasing while their academic performance is declining. A first sergeant commented, “We love being soldiers but we are also people with families and children. When we’re not soldiers we’re soccer coaches, Cub Scout leaders, and we’re involved in our local P.T.A.” Fifteen months from home significantly impacts the military family. Another soldier who had already served three tours said, “I just can’t bear to tell my kids that I am being deployed again and that my tour will be extended beyond a year.”
“Our Army will do what is asked of them, but it is unconscionable to ask the same men and women, who have deployed three or four times and who have already served a year in intensive combat, to now extend their time in theater for an additional three months. As one soldier put it, “after six months in Iraq, every day is another Groundhog Day.”
“Our military has done a tremendous job with what has been asked of them. They have juggled and balanced with what they have, but what they have is not enough. The president asks the impossible and the burden continues to fall on the very few. The pressure must be taken off the current force and their families who have already sacrificed so much. If the President insists on continuing the current operational tempo and policy, then he should call for a military draft. That is the responsible thing to do.”
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4/20/2007, 8:36 am
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