U.S. struggling to find replacement troops

SanLuisObispo.com ^ | 7/18/03 | Joesph L. Galloway - Knight Ridder

[NormsRevenge]

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The Pentagon is scrambling to find enough fresh troops to begin an orderly rotation program that would bring home some of the 147,000 soldiers spread thinly across troubled Iraq.

With the new commanding general of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, confirming what others in the Defense Department had been reluctant to admit - that United States forces face an increasingly deadly guerrilla war - the question of relief and rotation for weary GIs moved to the front burner.

The easiest fix would be for the 14,000 foreign forces, mostly British, already in Iraq to be augmented by thousands more allied soldiers. But negotiations to internationalize the occupation have been slow and difficult.

Defense officials noted the difficulties by citing Hungary's offer to send a truck battalion with no trucks. Presumably the American military would have to supply the trucks for the Hungarians to drive.

The need for replacement troops is putting great strain on both the active and reserve forces already stretched thin meeting obligations in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sinai - and a brigade-sized force of up to 5,000 troops expected to be deployed to peacekeeping duties in Liberia.

With only ten active duty divisions the 480,000-man U.S. Army has been stretched almost to the breaking point by the Iraq deployments. While Defense Secretary Donald L. Rumsfeld and his top civilian aides have talked in the past of chopping another two divisions out of that Army, some in Congress have begun urging an increase in the active Army by as much as 25 percent.

Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, in his retirement speech last month, warned against loading 12 divisions worth of tasks on a 10-division Army. Last February Shinseki got in trouble with Rumsfeld for predicting before a Congressional committee that securing postwar Iraq might require more than 200,000 American soldiers.

Even more stressful have been the unprecedented demands placed on America's citizen-soldiers, the troops in the 900,000-strong Reserve and National Guard, over 200,000 of whom are on active duty. Some of them have been called up for more than a year already, placing great financial strains on their families and in many cases putting their civilian careers and businesses in jeopardy.

The likelihood of more Reserve and Guard call-ups for Iraq comes even as Rumsfeld has ordered an urgent study and the drafting of plans by month's end for a sweeping restructuring of those part-time forces that would shift a great deal of the burden back into the active military.

Pentagon officials said Rumsfeld's objective in rebalancing the Reserves and Guard is to ensure that every time the United States takes action in the world it does not automatically mean the call-up of large numbers of Reservists and Guard troops.

After the searing experience of Vietnam, Pentagon officials like former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger took pains to guarantee that all of America would have a stake in future combat operations by putting such crucially needed units as the military police, air refueling tanker pilots and civil-military affairs specialists into the Reserve and Guard. Then, the theory went, almost every community in the nation would have to make a contribution to any war.

The CentCom commander says he is working to establish a one-year tour of duty in Iraq and to ensure that those troops who had been there the longest would be the first to rotate home.

That would be the U.S. Army's 15,000-man 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, which spearheaded the 19-day drive to Baghdad. One brigade of that division has been in Kuwait and Iraq for nearly a year.

Pentagon officials said even more National Guard and Reserve troops may have to be called up for deployment to Iraq. Elements of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas, and the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii are likewise under consideration for deployment to Iraq.

Although top Defense Department officials had hoped that the numbers of U.S. troops required to secure Iraq would be swiftly declining to below 100,000 by now, this has not happened and does appear likely to happen with the confirmation that mid-level Baath Party die-hards and disgruntled Iraqi soldiers are organizing and conducting more sophisticated guerrilla operations against American soldiers.

Perhaps the most telling comment of all this past week came in a photograph circulating on the Internet which shows an Army truck roaring down a dusty Iraq road, obviously driven by a disgruntled Reservist, with a placard in the front window saying: "One weekend a month my a--."

[TheAngryClam]

Draft?

[RightWhale]

There are plenty of replacement troops right there. Iraqi. Worked for Alexander, will work now. Hire them.

[snooker]

<<< ... draft >>>

No need, the recruiters are turning away applicants. Clinton cut the Army to 10 divisions. Looks like that was another of his unwise decisions.

[Support Free Republic]

50,000 people go to a baseball game, but the game was rained out. A refund is then due. The team is about to mail refunds when the Congressional Democrats stopps them and decrees that they send out refund amounts based on the Democrat National Committee's interpretation of fairness. After all,if the refunds are made based on the price each person paid for the tickets, most of the money would go to the wealthiest ticket holders. That would be unconscionable!

Free Republic

Your donations keep us fighting liberals

[dixiechick2000]

The last I heard, we have 9,000 former Iraqui soldiers on the payroll. I don't know what they are doing, if anything, to earn their keep, though.

[JRandomFreeper]

There is no need for a draft. There are 6-7 of us in my small reserve unit that have volunteered to be replacements. It's the burro-ocracy that stops us. Them and their funding "buckets".

/john

[AntiGuv]

[RightWhale]

9,000 former Iraqui soldiers on the payroll

Still Iraqi. That number needs to be augmented considerably, the quicker the better. Two benefits: frees up American enlisted men for other duty; and puts Iraq further along the road to self-rule.

[squidly]

Well, I'm 33 and been out of the service for six years, but I'm single with no kids so hell, I'll go if they want me.

[Lijahsbubbe]

An article I read quoted one of our soldiers as saying the Iraqi police are too scared to patrol!

[NormsRevenge]

Thanks for the pic!!!

My heart goes out to those who serve today on foreign shores. GodSpeed, and thanks to x42 for decimating our force strengths and sending them to Haiti, Kosovo, Bosnia in perpetuity.

Time to pull most our troops out of Germany, Korea and elsewhere. What a waste!

[dixiechick2000]

At this point, there may be more Iraqis involved.

I agree with you, totally, on the benefits of such a program. It would be nice to make them self-sustaining ASAP, and start giving our guys some much needed R&R. Plus, it appears our guys may be needed in other parts of the world...maybe soon.

[zingzang]

Rotating troops is only part of the answer. The men and women over there certainly need a break, but the reservists and national guardsmen need better laws to protect them should they get mobilized. The soldiers/sailors relief act is woefully inadequate.

[dixiechick2000]

"...the Iraqi police are too scared to patrol!"

I don't blame them. In some parts of Iraq they have been subject to threats, and attacks. The Fedayeen and Ba'athists don't like to see them cooperating with us.

[mikenola]

Only problem is that the Iraqi soldiers have almost zero credible military training or soldierly discipline. Perhaps they can re-doctrinated over time, but for now consider the Iraqi former military a dead letter.

Seems to me a good solution would be to draw replacement troops from Germany and Bosnia/Kosovo. If the Europeans don't give a hoot about our security and won't help us with troops in Iraq, then piss on helping them in Europe.

[BonnieJ]

When Clinton shut down all those bases and cut back divisions, didn't anyone see this coming?

[JoeSchem]

It seems one of the biggest mistakes of this war was mobilizing for so long in advance of the actual invasion. I realize the mobilization was a tactical ploy to get Saddam to back down, but it also carried a cost that we are bearing right now -- our troops have been on station for long months and are very tired.

[RightWhale]

consider the Iraqi former military a dead letter

Sure, recruit the youngsters, train them, and set them up. It would put the youth to work doing something productive, and get them off the street. Double bonus.

[CPT Clay]

I Sense someting is comming for the National Guard. The Bosnia and Sinai Missions are already Guard. Kosovo and Afganistan will be soon. International troops are in Afganistan. Why are Bosnia,Kosovo not NATO missions. We should be excused from these because they are a European problem. Anybody seen that Jpeg showing a vehicle in Iraq with a hand made sign saying " One weekend a month My ass"???

[OnTheDress]

Teach them about liberty, democracy, and separation of church from governing at the same time.

CB^o

[vbmoneyspender]

General Abizaid in his press conference the other day specifically contradicted what is being reported in this article. Abizaid said that if they needed to rotate troops in, there would not be a problem for the military. Not only are soldiers available, but Marines as well More importantly, Abizaid said that the key to stamping out the remaining thugs in Iraq was not more troops per square meter. Instead, Abizaid said the key was finding and killing the mid-level Baathist thugs that are causing the problems. Abizaid said that the remaining Baathists posed an intelligence problem for our troops, not a manpower problem. So how is our military responding. I believe that the military is effectively recreating the Phoenix Program in Iraq and they are going to find and assassinate all of the remaining Baathists and Islamic fanatics

[RightWhale]

Boot camp, American style, but in Iraq. It will be good for them. Maybe we'll learn some Arabian, too, and be able to help free them from those who have stolen their language and use it now as a tool of oppression.

[OnTheDress]

Wouldn’t it be cool to see a report some months from now where Iraqi kids were running home to tell their parents? “Look what I learned today – When I grow up I could run for office and become President of Iraq. But I would not be like Saddam, I would do things that the people would like, so they would vote for me again.”

CB^))

[RightWhale]

There is every chance and we should have every expectation that is exactly how it will go in Iraq. Bagdad was once the greatest city on earth. Could be again.

[technomage]

Well, we are in what, 54 countries last I heard? Let's
get out of say, oh, 35 of those countries. That should eleviate some of the problem.

[squidly]

Boot camp, American style, but in Iraq.

U.S. Army Special Forces were created for just that, among other purposes. Train the natives and turn them into soldiers. I expect it's already going on, to some extent or another.

[mystery-ak]

I have a feeling my hubby isn't coming home in Oct.

[mystery-ak]

What'd ya think?

[OldCorps]

This article reflects the real problem we face, one that is a large elephant standing in the living room and no one wants to admitt it's presence: the US Army is too small and overtasked. Sure, GEN Abazaid said there are soldiers available, but what else would you expect him to say? That there are not?

The reality is that we don't have enough units in Iraq to maintain stability, while manning all the other places the US Army has to maintain a presence. And this doesn't even address the issue of rotating the 3rd ID and the USMC out and sending other units into Iraq.

However, the worst problem is that there exists every possibility that we might have to fight a war with N Korea in the near future. The problem with that is there is no way we have the conventional forces, US Army and USMC, to prosecute such a campaign and win outright. Thus all the diplomacy.

What we need to do is immediately begin the process of adding 4 more divisions: probably two heavy and two light. They might be need down the road.

[Thunder 6]

I think you are on to something. The Guard is already running SFOR and is about to take over KFOR. I'm sure the active army would like to get out of Afganistan as soon as they can...it was tying up the 82nd and now the 10th MT. I'd look for a couple (or three) of those Army Guard "E Brigade's" to get a call shortly.
One might argue that the "streched too thin" argument is a canard: For example, over 50% of all the tank Battalions in the army are in the ARNG. Not one of them has been activated to do anything remotely close to their wartime mission, yet.
The army is on the horns of a classic dilemna with regard to ARNG combat forces: One the one hand, if a ARNG unit deploys and does well (there are already Guard Infantry units in Baghdad, but the Army doesn't make that known), then Congress might ask the reason why we have all these expensive Active units sitting around, when an ARNG unit can be trained up and deployed in the same amount of time (the 3rd ID didn't just roll in from Stewart and hit the berm...they had months to train in Kuwait).
However, the second horn might be worse...if that same Guard unit gets ripped apart in combat, congress will certainly ask the reason why the Active army did not prepare the Guard unit adequately...
Now that I think about it, perhaps it really IS all about the money and saving active duty Divisions...
regards,

[squidly]

we might have to fight a war with N Korea in the near future. The problem with that is there is no way we have the conventional forces, US Army and USMC, to prosecute such a campaign and win outright

We've got enough for Korea. If Korea didn't exist, the 3rd would have been relieved already.

[FairOpinion]

Don't forget the six months the UN kept delaying and delaying us.

[FairOpinion]

The real problem is that Clinton cut the military in half.

STATE OF MILITARY PREPAREDNESS IN AMERICA
http://www.house.gov/hunter/stm4-def.htm

April 23, 1998

Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, we are getting closer and closer to the anniversary of the invasion of South Korea, and I reflected back the other day when I was at my aunt and uncle's house in Fort Worth, Texas, because on one of their dressers they have a photograph of a young marine; his name was Son Stilwell, a Marine Lieutenant killed in Korea, one of the 50,000-some casualties KIA that we suffered in that conflict.

I reflected on that this pending anniversary. We are on the eve of when I listened to our Secretary of Defense and President Clinton's defense leaders as they presented a declining defense budget to the U.S. Congress. The situation, I think, is a lot like it was in those days in 1950 before that June invasion. To set the stage, Mr. Speaker, we have come down, we have slashed defense and cut down on our forces dramatically since Desert Storm. We have cut from 18 Army divisions that we had in 1991 to only 10 today. That is, incidentally and coincidentally, the same number of Army divisions we had when Korea was invaded.

We have gone from 24 to only 13 fighter air wings, so we have cut our air power almost in half under the Clinton Administration. And we have cut our naval vessels from 546 to 333, about a 40 percent cut in naval vessels.

Now, the theme in 1950 and the reason that so many defense leaders from then Lewis Johnson, then Secretary of Defense, right on down, the theme that they propounded as they presented this declining defense budget to the U.S. Congress, and said that it was adequate, was that somehow we were the dominating nation of the world with respect to high-tech, and nobody would mess with us. Of course, we had at that time the nuclear weapon. Nobody else presumably had that until a few years later.

Yet we were shocked in June when the North Koreans invaded South Korea and almost pushed the South Korean forces and the Americans that tried to stem the tide into the sea. We tried to hold them up at the Osan Pass, the 25th Infantry Division that we flew in, MacArthur flew in from Japan, was cut to ribbons. The commander, General Dean was, in fact, captured by North Korean forces.

We held the Pusan Peninsula by our toenails and finally started to push it up to the northern part of the peninsula. Then, interestingly, the theme that the leaders had that nobody would mess with us because we had the high technology and the nuclear weapon was further devastated when the Communist Chinese invaded South Korea.

The point isn't that we are any dumber than we were in 1950 and/or maybe we were dumber than we are now, and maybe we have leaders today that know something those people didn't know. My point is that the events of the world are unpredictable and that we today are taking a high level of risk by dramatically cutting our defenses.

The American people need to know that. They need to know that the massive savings, so-called savings that President Clinton is showing the world proudly and showing the American people proudly, the millions of dollars that he has pulled out of programs, have primarily been pulled out of national security.

We have dramatically cut back our national security. And we do not know what this world is going to bring us. I am reminded of the fact that when we had our assembled intelligence apparatus and our intelligence leaders in front of us, and we asked them a few simple questions, such as which of you predicted the Falklands war, none of them could raise their hands. When we asked which of you predicted the downfall of the Soviet Union, that was in all the papers. None of them could raise their hands.

And when we asked them which of you predicted the invasion of Kuwait, one of them actually said before or after the armored columns started moving? We said, no; before the armored columns started moving. None of them had predicted the invasion of Kuwait. It is not that they are not smart, it is not that they don't have a lot of resources at their disposal. The facts are that unexpected things happen in this world.

We are still living in a very unstable world, and we have a declining military to face that unstable world with. One reason we were able to bring home to the American people so many of the soldiers and sailors and marines who went over to Desert Storm, and the reason we didn't have to fill up those 40,000 body bags we took with us in fighting the fourth largest army in the world, was because we were so strong we won the war decisively in a very short period of time with very limited American casualties.

Mr. Speaker, we are taking a big chance today, because under the Clinton Administration's leadership, we have cut our military almost in half. If the balloon goes up today, we cannot win a Desert Storm war as decisively as we did just a few years ago.

[rockfish59]

I'm depending on you old men to be a steadying influence for the replacements!

[OldCorps]

lesseee, 25th, 2nd ID and a USMC division, roughly a corps, then you add some ROK forces. what do the NK's have? Nothing to lose, nukes and an army of about 1 million

see

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/dprk/army.htm

I've never served in the pacific or even I Corps, but one things for sure: it will be a tough fight.

[OldCorps]

are you air force by chance?

[fightu4it]

Replacement troops would be a whole lot easier to get if they would start hanging a few of the bad guys over there.

[niteowl77]

Knowing how Uncle S. hates to let a certain class of folks go 180 days, I'm not too sure what will go on, but I'd really be surprised if they don't come home then. If they DO stay in Iraq, then I suppose PFC Edskid Jr. will go outside the tent, loudly curse the scenery in a general way to no one in particular, and then get ready for another day. In his case, he can't go back to college until the class rotation is right, so that might be one advantage he has over someone with a job and family.

He's only been in the unit for two years, but he already knows that the Army can be like the weather in Iowa: wait a while and it will get worse... or better.

[mystery-ak]

....but their orders say up to a year...

[squidly]

lesseee, 25th, 2nd ID and a USMC division, roughly a corps, then you add some ROK forces.

Throw in 1st Cav. ROK strength is about 600,000, well trained, U.S. equipped. Their air force ain't bad either. Theoretically we could throw in 2 USMC divisions, but it would probably be just one.

PDRK is equipped mostly with older Soviet junk. Without major help from China, they would likely run out of gas two weeks in. The only big question is whether it would go nuclear.

[Thunder 6]

No, but I hear the Air Force IS a viable alternative to Government serivce... ;)

regards,

[niteowl77]

Then a year he shall serve!

(But if he is overseas that long, I'll be surprised.)

Before he signed the papers, he was pretty clear about what might be expected, so he will do the job. And if any reporter tries to hooraw him while he is there, some network will need a proctologist to retrieve their microphone.

[OldCorps]

What do you think; are the NKs spoiling for a fight? Do you think we are gearing up to take them on?

[squidly]

What do you think; are the NKs spoiling for a fight? Do you think we are gearing up to take them on?

PDRK is a dying nation that is approaching the point where it must either expand or collapse. It's really a question of how much China is willing to prop them up. They're certainly full of bluster and threats in hope of gaining concession from the west. The billion dollar question is... How much of it is idle threat, and how much of it is real threat?

It seems farfetched that they'd be so stupid as to think they could say "Give us what we want, or we'll nuke you," we don't give them what they want, and then they commit a nuclear first strike. Surely they understand this would mean the large scale incineration of their country. Yet they make these threats nonetheless.

I can't see that we're "gearing up" for it, but we are holding units in reserve in case something happens. If it weren't for the Korean situation, 3 ID would have already been relieved by one of these units. Standard U.S. strategy for Korea goes something like the 1st Korean War... If PDRK attacks, ROK + 2 ID and our air units in the region slow down their advance while ground reinforcements and air and sea power are brought to Korea. It is a war that North Korea will lose without Chinese help, the only question is what the cost to us will be. And China is less likely to intervene than they were fifty years ago due to their close trade association with the United States. It's not out of the question that the ROK and U.S. ground forces on the peninsula are capable of defeating PDRK with perhaps only some additional airpower. While PDRK Army is large and determined, it's equipment is outdated and fuel supply precarious. Ditto for their Air Force, but it's equipment is older, if anything. Their Navy isn't much to brag about.

In the end it all comes down to China.