Posted on 10/13/2004 10:10:31 PM PDT by Former Military Chick
With explosions and gunfire echoing in the distance, the Marines in the observation post in downtown Ramadi know they are at war. They're just not sure who — or where — the enemy is. In restive Iraqi cities like Ramadi, the U.S. campaign to deny sanctuary to the insurgents consists of a daily assortment of hit-and-run exchanges, alleyway gunfights and nighttime raids. "They've taken the fight into the neighborhoods," says Captain Jeffrey Kenney, commander of Golf Company of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment. "The hardest thing is to ID where the fire is coming from." The jarheads long for a pitched battle but know that will never happen because the rebels aren't suicidal. The Marines must seek out the insurgents and monitor the places where they hide, which is why these Marines are hunkered down in a bullet-pocked building overlooking the Grand Mosque, scanning the streets and rooftops for rebel gunmen. It's exasperating work. "They tend not to get us because they're lousy shots," says Sergeant Jeremy Barone. "We tend not to get them because they run away."
Peril lurks around every corner. Even in Ramadi, a Sunni town that the U.S. military considers under its control, the Marines are ambushed nearly every day by insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. Convoys passing through the city must navigate a minefield of roadside bombs. The violence has made it impossible to carry out missions to win the hearts and minds of the locals, most of whom have never warmed to the U.S. presence. The Marines in Ramadi don't use tanks and rarely call in air support; instead, they rely on guile, guts and instinct to hunt down the insurgents. Given the task at hand and the large area of operations, units like Captain Kenney's Golf Company look as if they could use help. But with just 137,000 U.S. troops in Iraq trying to defeat an insurgency that has spread to more than two dozen cities and towns, the Marines know they can't expect much. "Could you spend more time here and get a better impression of the city? Absolutely," Kenney says. "Do I need more people? No, I don't."
Over the course of the U.S. adventure in Iraq, military commanders and Bush Administration officials have been united in their insistence that they have enough troops to win the war, despite the fact that parts of the country have slipped out of the control of the U.S. and its Iraqi allies as the insurgency has grown in ferocity. The consensus seemed to crumble last week, when L. Paul Bremer III, former top U.S. official in Iraq, told a West Virginia audience that "we never had enough troops on the ground" to prevent the looting and chaos that wracked Baghdad after the U.S. invasion last spring. Bremer later scrambled to amend his remarks, contending that whatever the shortfalls last spring, the U.S. now had sufficient numbers in Iraq. But his comments emboldened critics like Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry who blast the Administration for mismanaging the war, and added to nervousness about the military's high-stakes offensive to seize control of the Sunni triangle from the insurgents in time for nationwide elections in January. U.S. officials say that as part of the strategy, the interim Iraqi government will try to win over the rebel-controlled towns by pouring security personnel and reconstruction funds into them, hoping to wean local residents from their support of the insurgents. If that doesn't work — and if the central government is unable to negotiate peace with the guerrillas — the U.S. military and its Iraqi allies are prepared to attack.
The war, in other words, could well get bloodier. The Pentagon is rushing to train 200,000 Iraqi troops to take over combat duties by next August, but meanwhile the U.S. military is trapped in a nation-building marathon that the Army is ill prepared to carry out. Among some Americans, the prospect of an open-ended U.S. commitment in Iraq has heightened anxieties that manpower shortages may lead the Pentagon to reinstitute the draft. The heat of the presidential campaign has kept the rumors alive, which may prove costly to George W. Bush.
In a TIME poll taken before the second debate, 42% of those surveyed said they believe that if Bush is re-elected he will reinstitute the draft, while only 21% believe Kerry would. Pentagon officials, field commanders and both presidential candidates insist a draft is neither necessary nor desirable and that the U.S. can maintain its commitments with an all-volunteer Army. "We're not going to have a draft — period," Bush said in last Friday's debate. Yet speculation about the looming return of conscription has become so rampant that House Republicans last week tried to dispel the rumors by forcing a vote on a no-hope bill to reinstate the draft. (It lost, 402 to 2.) "We've got 295 million people in this country," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said before the vote. "We don't need a draft."
Maybe not, but there is plenty of evidence that the U.S. needs to find more troops. Deployed in more than 120 nations around the world, from Iraq to Mongolia, the nation's fighting forces are stretched, by all accounts, to the breaking point. Since 9/11, the number of active-duty and reservist troops deployed overseas has shot up from 203,000 to 500,000. All the Army's combat brigades have been dispatched into war zones over the past two years; some have already gone twice. The demands of war in Iraq and Afghanistan have forced the U.S. to keep some units on a constant combat footing, sharply reducing the recuperation and retraining period that military experts say is essential to maintain a first-rate Army.
There are signs that the strain of long deployments and the danger of serving in Iraq have diminished the appeal of military service. The Army National Guard reported that for the first time in a decade, it fell about 10%--or 5,000 soldiers — short of its annual goal for recruits. The pool of youngsters who have committed in 2004 to join the Army next year is only 18% of the total required, about half what the Army likes to have banked away. Roughly a third of the 3,900 Individual Ready Reservists mobilized for combat — who thought their days in uniform were over — are resisting the military's call-up. "These are the cracks that are beginning to show," Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island and a former Army officer, told TIME. "With more deployments, those cracks are going to get bigger. We're in grave danger of breaking the force."
What can be done? The Pentagon has applied a host of manpower tourniquets to keep bodies in uniform and on the front lines. For example, the military has issued "stop loss" orders that have prohibited thousands of soldiers at the end of their enlistment obligations from leaving if their units are bound for Iraq, a policy Kerry likens to a "back-door draft." Kerry wants to increase the size of the Army by 40,000--double the one-year increase authorized by Congress last week. To more effectively hunt down insurgents and terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere, he also proposes doubling the size of Army special-operations personnel. Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution, applauds the Kerry plan. He says it would add $10 billion to the nation's $450 billion annual defense budget but would provide the military with insurance in case war-weary troops start bailing out in higher numbers. "It just ensures that we won't break the force by driving people out," he says.
The Bush Administration has resisted calls for expanding the Army and instead has focused on its goal of "transforming" the military into a more mobile, lethal force. Rumsfeld and his handpicked-from-retirement Army chief of staff, General Peter Schoomaker, have made clear they want no permanent increase in troops for the U.S. Army (although they have okayed a temporary 30,000 hike). They're pushing a four-pronged offensive designed to give the Army 30% more combat punch without permanently adding soldiers. They are breaking the Army into smaller, more potent units, pulling calcified forces out of cold-war strongholds like Western Europe and South Korea, and shifting military policing and other nation-building skills from the reserves to the active-duty force. They're hiring contractors to perform many of the noncombat missions now being done by soldiers, so that those troops can put their fingers on triggers instead of keyboards. The goal is to streamline the military's cumbersome, costly bureaucracy. In Friday's debate, Bush summed up the rationale for his reform push: "We don't need mass armies anymore."
But even if the Administration succeeds in remaking the military, the failure to bolster troop levels carries grave short-term risks. In August, a classified study requested by Rumsfeld concluded that there are "inadequate total numbers" of U.S. troops to maintain the current pace of operations around the world. Some military experts fear that if a crisis erupted with Iran and North Korea, the U.S. would be unable to credibly threaten the use of force because of its obligations in Iraq and Afghanistan. "We can't respond to another major crisis right now," says retired Army General Barry McCaffrey. "We have shot our wad."
The Pentagon believes that in a crunch it can bring in more soldier volunteers by offering new recruits higher salaries and benefits and dangling bonuses as high as $40,000 for highly trained and specialized troops to re-enlist. (The average soldier receives $7,500.) All four active-duty services met their recruiting goals for the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. "They see their country under attack," says Army Lieut. General Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard. "They're willing to step forward and answer the call to colors." But given the scale of the U.S. commitment in Iraq and the range of potential conflicts beyond it, a few military experts are beginning to say the U.S. may someday reach a point where — no matter who is elected in November — it will have no choice but to reconsider the draft. General John Keane, who retired last year as the Army's No. 2 officer, says the continued success of the all-volunteer military is not guaranteed. "The volunteer force was the most significant military event of the 20th century," he told TIME. "But it's not preordained that it will always be there or that it is always going to be successful." Keane has told Congress that adding more than 50,000 troops to the Army would require thinking about a return to the draft. "If you have worldwide military requirements that demand more people but you don't have enough volunteers," Keane says, "then you don't have a choice."
For the troops on the ground in Iraq and those preparing to head back into battle, relief is still a long way off. Yet military commanders argue that Schoomaker's plan to remold the Army will soon show results in Iraq. "We're going to go back with much more capability than we had before," says Major General William Webster, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, which will return to Iraq later this year. It will be the first unit retooled by Schoomaker. "We'll have more brigades, more ground-controlling combat power and more ability to kill and capture the enemy." But as the Marines in Ramadi have learned, there's little room for complacency against such an elusive, shadowy foe.
On a recent afternoon, the Marines from Golf Company spot an abandoned car that looks suspicious. It's in a place where cars don't usually park, and pedestrians seem to be avoiding it. And it's on the route the Marines often use to return to their base at the end of their shift. The Marines summon the Iraqi police to take a look, but the cop car passes by several times without actually stopping to check out the vehicle. Frustrated, Lieut. Phillip Downs radios for permission to destroy the vehicle. Once he gets it, one of his men turns the abandoned car into a burning hulk with three volleys from his Mark 19 grenade launcher. Downs is sure he made the right choice, eliminating an unknown before it could do harm to U.S. forces. Whether the U.S. military can repeat that success across Iraq and around the globe with the forces at its disposal is less certain. And the cost of guessing wrong could be much higher.
With reporting by Phil Zabriskie/Ramadi
No. We don't need a draft. The military is doing fine as it is. All volunteer.
ANYtime some lefty dildo or dildette screams ''need'', the idea stinks, pure and simple.
As if a military draft would A) improve the most efficient and competent military in the world or B) accomplish ANYthing other than p*ssing off the pros and violating the Constitution via -- correct me if in error -- ''involuntary servitude''.
Where is Kerry going to get those 40,000 aditional active duty troops?
Kerry says that the military is having trouble retaining people. He says there is a "back door draft." He says the military isn't meeting their goals for new recruits.
So where are these 40,000 new soldiers going to come from?
The military currently polls 75 percent for President Bush. With only 17 percent for Kerry. The biggest reason given as the negative on Kerry is his anti-war activities and his rhetoric against the OIF/OEF. If God forbid Kerry did win election the military may not fight for him. This would lead to a serious dillema and if Kerry senses this he may petition Congress to put the entire Military at the disposal of the UN on missions in Iraq. This has huge consequences for the future of the United States.. Make no mistake this is an historic election.
No we don't need a draft but we do need to increase the pool of Active Duty Forces either by increasing the shear numbers or by withdrawing troops from Europe and Asia were they're not needed to free them up for the real WOT. The troops as of now are being overtaxed in my opinion and it needs to be fixed.
Kerry has a position on conscription, its on his website. He wants to conscript every American for two years. How the media turns a blind eye to it is beyond my capacity to give a crap.
I agree. We do need more of a buildup than we have. Relocating troops alone isn't enough. But we don't need a draft. That's just scare tactics 101 for Democrats.
After 19 years in the military, I know that we shudder at the though of returning to a conscript force. The bottom line is that the US military is not set up to function with conscripts anymore and has proven beyond a doubt that we can build and employ an all volunteer force far superior to any conscript force. Even in our darkest hours, we still turn people away from military service every day. All this left-wing induced talk about a draft is a waste of time - let's stay on the real subjects of today, shall we. Please.
If Kerry becomes our nation's Commander-in-chief we may have fewer young people enlisting.
Then we will need to reinstate the draft.
It's basically the same deal as how Kerry can make a bigoted swipe at Mary Cheney's sexuality and have it ignored, whereas if Bush had said the same thing about the daughter of a Democrat, it would make Watergate, Abu Ghraib, and Iran-Contra look like a couple of slow news days.
If Kerry become President, we will have trouble retaining people in the military. They will leave in droves.
It's phony, but in another three weeks it'll be old news. There's no way in hell that we'll reinstate the draft. It would be far cheaper, for a number of reasons, to just increase everyone's pay, set larger reup bonuses, or do any number of things to entice people to stay in. The draft would dull our cutting edge, and we'd need vast numbers of draftee troops to make up the difference.
Nothing would improve the greatest military the world has ever seen more than dragging a bunch of Phish or PDiddy fans into it against their will.
We have troops in 120 countries.
Get them out of South Korea and Germany. We don't need a draft.We have plenty of armed forces.
This draft lie is another example of the media/DNC co-ordination to elect Kerry.
The draft thing is a boondogle. Read the bill. The existing criteria for enlistment would remain. Those that didn't go into military would go into civilian service.
To join the military:
1. High School Diploma
2. No Dependents
3. Good Credit
4. No Drug Use
5 No criminal history
Rangel knows that 50% of Black youths don't graduate. Do the math and you'll see that white kids go into the military and black kids get governmemt jobs for 2 years.
You also can avoid MILITARY service BY DROPPING OUT OF HIGH SCHOOL.
I agree with you on all counts. We don't need to be in South Korea and Germany. We do have plenty of armed forces.
The fear I mean draft is put out by the left and their media machine.
Are you kidding me? Having to meet all 5 restrictions (especially 2-4) would disqualify well over half of the current military.
http://usmilitary.about.com/library/weekly/aa082701b.htm
Go to page 2.
These are FACTS.
I'm writing an article on the Rangle draft proposal.
Knock up their girlfriend.
Declare bankruptcy.
Smoke weed.
Commit crimes.
Well, that's a super idea. Some 19 year old who's afraid of being shipped overseas to die for an oil pipeline from Afghanistan to Halliburton, Tx, will decide that dropping one of the 5 no-no's above will keep him safe and at home. Brilliant plan, Mr. Rangel.
I brought up the retention problem a Kerry administration would bring to a liberal I know and they felt that wont happen "because we can keep current active duty and reserve/guard in the military for the rest of their life with stop losses and a simple executive order by Kerry." I told him that without a formal declaration of war, even the president can't keep people in that long, and the executive order bit sounds like absolute BS to me.
Anyone know the specifics about this?
The all volunteer force works (unless we get a traitor for C in C). I do think we need to expand enlistment in the Army, some in the Marines, but not sure if the Air Force or the Navy need much.
Agreed as to what they **would** do, i.e. scream their moronic heads off, but I must respectfully disagree that the ''draft is coming'' business is having any particular political effect at this time.
Those in college who do not bother to collect facts will believe anything, but do they vote? Rather less than most, I should say. Those who do bother will have already seen that this ''issue'' is just so much bilge, and is/has been in any case sponsored by the 'Rats ONLY.
Pls correct me if in error, but it's only the al-Qerry cretins who are proposing -- under one rubric or another -- to forcibly confiscate 2 years of a young person's life, whether in the military or in ''national service'' (pardon my retching).
If Kerry is elected there will be a draft. He said so during the debates. He said he was calling up thousands of troops.
Listen to what this dangerous man says.
It would be just like the Democrats to re-institute slavery...just like in the good old days before 1860. Interesting how the Democrat you know came out in favor of an indentured army for life.
Polls I have seen show as much as 38% of people believe Liar Dan's lie about the Draft Lie. In an election, where every vote counts that could scare just enough to vote for Kerry.
Polls I have seen show as much as 38% of people believe Liar Dan's lie about the Draft Lie. In an election, where every vote counts that could scare just enough to vote for Kerry. In addition, Kerry has supporters who are going around to Colleges and Universities and telling them Bush is going to bring back the draft. Unfortunately, most people don't know about Kerry's plan for a National Service program.
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