Lt. General James Henly, the Army Reserve chief, sent a personal, detailed memo to Army Chief of Staff General Peter Schoomaker on December 20, 2004, confirming the concerns detailed above. The memo's stated purpose was “to inform [Schoomaker] of the Army Reserve's inability … to meet mission requirements,” and he said in it that that the Reserve is “rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force.”3 Add to this comments made by senior National Guard officers – like Lt. Gen. Steven Blum, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, who said recently, “My concern is that the National Guard will not be a ready force next time it's needed, whether here at home or abroad”; or head of the Maine National Guard, Brig. Gen Bill Libby, who said that “one can conclude that we're going to run out of soldiers” – and the picture is even more disturbing.4 Pointing to the combined psychological impact of Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, and U.S. casualties in Iraq, Philip Turner of UPI observed that “young men and women are not exactly banging down recruiting station doors to join the Army.”1Retired Lt. Col. Charles Krohn, who worked at the Pentagon as a civilian public affairs official, spoke to veteran journalist Robert Novak, seconding Turner's assessment, and saying that recruiters are not to blame for current recruiting problems. But the war is. “Army recruiting is in a death spiral,” he said, and it's “an unintended consequence of a prolonged war in Iraq, especially given the failure to find WMD.”2 Though Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has recently attempted to remind Americans that there were dark and pessimistic times even during World War II,3 he forgets that far fewer Americans see Iraq as a war of necessity demanding sweeping national sacrifice. Charles Peña, director of defense policy studies at the Cato Institute, puts it more accurately: “This is not like World War II in that the country is still split on this war – there just aren't all those volunteers … and in Iraq, it's a situation that at best is treading water” (emphasis mine).4
Robert Novak cut to exactly this essential point in his piece for the Chicago Sun-Times.” The Army's dilemma,” he said,
is maintaining an all-volunteer service when volunteering means going in harm's way in Iraq. The dilemma extends to national policy. How can the United States maintain its global credibility against the Islamists, if military ranks cannot be filled by volunteers and there is no public will for a draft?5
If indeed they cannot, is outright conscription in the cards? Will the public accept it if it does come to that? How much will – and foolishness – does it take for the American public to “stay the course” under these kinds of conditions?
Effects on the American military 2: Equipment
The problem is not merely a question of men, it is also a question of equipment. Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, admitted earlier this year that his organization is “equipment-challenged right now.”1He also highlighted the fact that the Army had drawn down “almost all” of its pre-positioned stocks of armored vehicles and other equipment to outfit seven Army National Guard brigades for deployment. His comments were seconded by Lt. Gen. Blum of the National Guard, who said that the Guard was “woefully under-equipped before the war started,” and pointed out that the situation wasn't getting any better.2 Reporters Wood and Esteve bring these assessments up to date in their June 2005 report.
To fully equip units in Iraq, the Pentagon has stripped local Guard units of about 24,000 pieces of equipment, including helicopters, Humvees, radios, heavy trucks, night vision goggles, and weapons. That has left Guard units at home, already seriously short of gear, without equipment critical to state missions. The problem is especially acute in some Western states that cannot control forest fires without the National Guard.3
The “coalition of the willing” will not come to the rescue, either. After saying that one third of the British military was experiencing serious weaknesses, a report from the U.K.'s National Audit Office, covered by the British Daily Telegraph, further indicates that “there is a potential crisis facing the military with so many troops deployed in operations overseas.”4With the resistance getting stronger by the day, and American and U.K. forces becoming more and more depleted, it may just be a question of who can hold on the longest.
Effects on the American military 3: Casualties
On January 6, 2005, an online news service compiled an article, based on Defense Department-and CNN-provided casualty information, that offered some sobering statistics. Even before the resurgence of the resistance after the claimed “lull” that followed the January 2005 “election,” it reported that “the number of soldiers suffering combat injuries in Iraq had surpassed the 10,000 mark since the war began in March 2003.”1 The Department of Defense had at that time announced that 10,252 Americans had been wounded in the period, of which 5,396 were hurt seriously enough to be unable to return to the battlefield. The compilation continued by noting that “with a total casualty count of 11,601, and a permanently deployed force of 130,000, the chances of U.S. soldiers being killed or wounded in the conflict have been reduced to one in 11.”2 It went further, saying that with “the death toll [then] at 1,349, the chances of U.S. soldiers being killed in battle in Iraq stands at one in 96.” A comforting thought for those sent to fight a war built on lies, especially considering that those statistics cover only 2003 and 2004.
“Iraq 2004 Looks Like Vietnam 1966” was the headline of another piece on U.S. casualties that appeared in December of last year on MSN's online magazine, Slate. The article offers an overview of research by Philip Carter and Owen West, respectively former Army and Marine Corps officers, and it is subtitled “Adjusting Body Counts for Medical and Military Changes.” The authors' research compares Iraq casualties with those of Vietnam, taking into account factors such as improved body armor and more effective medical procedures. They conclude that
[t]he casualty statistics make clear that our nation is involved in a war whose intensity on the ground matches that of previous American wars. Indeed the proportional burden on the infantryman is at its highest level since WWII.3
What they draw from this and other conclusions supported by their extensive research is that “today's fighting in Iraq may actually be more lethal than the street fighting in Vietnam,” an assessment, they note, that “should not be taken lightly.”4
As in the case of recruiting and equipment problems, American forces are not alone in suffering severe casualties. As of early this year, the British Army had lost around 80 soldiers and suffered over 800 wounded.1 When the number of British troops is scaled up proportionately to those of their American counterparts, their wounded rate is worse, even though they are not in the eye of the storm – at least for the moment. It is also worth noting that as of September 2004 some 700 British troops that served in Iraq were treated for mental health problems.2 With less than 10,000 British troops in Iraq, this figure is close to 10 percent of the British force! As for American troops, “the Pentagon admits that as many as 100,000 new combat vets nationwide will suffer from mental issues,”3 a figure not too far off from that mentioned by Dr. William Winkenwerder, Jr., assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, who said that “[t]he Department estimates between 8 and 15 percent of combat veterans suffer some lasting mental health trauma from their experience.”4 This is a tragedy both for the victims and for their families, hard enough to support in a just war. In an unjust war it is positively criminal that our young people are being sacrificed by a cabal of demonic warmongers.
The “Iraqi” army?
Pentagon chiefs and administration spokesmen regularly declare that America will be able to withdraw troops as soon as homegrown Iraqi forces are up and running. The goal in Iraq has long shifted away from “victory” to one of handing the problem over to native “Iraqi forces.” This line comes from the top of the Bush administration5 and is parroted down the chain of command.6 Whether the competence of the new “Iraqi forces” are up to the task or not, there is an obvious political problem with this approach. Most recruits come from Kurdish or Shiite areas, and are themselves, accordin
g to most reports, predominantly Kurdish or Shiite. They and the militias they serve with tend also, in many cases, to identify historically and ideologically with Kurdish factions or radical Shiite sects such as SCIRI and al-Dawa.1 Prior to the American invasion, these groups made it their mission to destabilize the legitimate government of Saddam Hussein, and they are seen by large numbers of Iraqis as having sectarian rather than generally nationalist, Iraqi motives. The fact that their activities were funded by the U.S., Iran, and others only adds to their suspicious character for many Iraqis. Their participation in an army supporting the American occupation can only be seen, by those who are anti-occupation, as just another chapter in the long saga of Kurdish and radical Shiite flirtation with foreign powers in order to further their own ends. Continued defense by the puppet Iraqi government of the use of Shiite and Kurdish militias (such as the Wolf and Badr Brigades) to “crack down” on insurgents can do nothing but fuel this antagonism, as we noted regarding the controversy surrounding the Wolf Brigade's treatment of Sunnis.2 Even the recruits recognize this: one who until recently was part of a new unit called the Defense Force of Rutba, which was disbanded by the U.S. after recruits refused to attend training, admitted that many see him as an enemy for collaborating with his country's occupiers. Indeed this is why members of his unit feared to attend the required U.S.-military-conducted training. “The people here would believe that we were cooperating with U.S. forces,” he said, “and that is a reason for anyone to be killed.”3
Politics aside, the prospects of this ragbag Kurdish-Shiite puppet force taking over from the American forces is not promising. As of the beginning of 2005, U.S. officials were claiming that the Iraqi army numbered some 120,000 men. Journalists such as veteran Middle East writer Dilip Hiro immediately cast credible doubt on this number, pointing out that in actuality only 5,000 of them were both trained and reliable.1 As for the “Iraqi Police Force,” they were said to number some 135,000 on paper, but, again according to Hiro, over 45,000 of those on the payroll never report for duty, and of the remainder, only 50 percent are properly trained or armed. Many if not most never fight when rebels turn up – as Fallujah, Mosul, Ramadi, and other towns have long demonstrated.2 A month after Hiro's piece, journalists writing for the British Independent on Sunday said that though the administration claimed that it was at the time “half-way to meeting the target of training almost 270,000 Iraqi forces, including around 52,000 troops and 135,000 Iraqi policemen,” experts maintained that there were “as few as 5,000 troops who could be considered combat ready.”3 This number was seconded as recently as June 2005 in an editorial appearing in Newsday, which cited
members of Congress [returning] from a recent trip to Iraq [who] were told by U.S. commanders that only about 5,000 … Iraqi troops can be counted on to confront the insurgency with any degree of success. In too many skirmishes, Iraqi soldiers have fled at the first sign of resistance, some defecting as quickly as they signed up for the relatively generous pay offered them.4
Due to this embarrassing reality, the Independent journalists wrote, “the Pentagon has stopped giving figures for the number of combat-ready indigenous troops.”5 Instead, “only figures for troops 'on hand' are issued,” which consist of the “overall total of Iraqis in uniform, [including] raw recruits and police who have gone on duty after as little as three weeks' training.” This policy has continued up to now, with a Bloomberg.com report confirming that the “Pentagon has refused to release the percentage of Iraqi troops considered capable of conducting combat operations on their own or with minimal U.S. assistance.”1 Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) pressed Air Force Gen. Richard Myers for an answer as to “how many of the roughly 130,000 Iraqi forces were sufficiently trained and equipped” during a February 3, 2005, Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, but the general said he could not give an estimate.2 Levin's own assessment was that “we have no way of measuring the capabilities” of our “allied” Iraqi forces. Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) has also taken issue with the administration's characterization of the state of “Iraqi” forces; during Secretary of State Rice's confirmation hearing in January 2005, he said,
Time and again this administration has tried to leave the American people with the impression that Iraq has well over 100,000 fully trained, fully competent military police and personnel, and that is simply not true. We're months, probably years, away from reaching our target.3
This was the assessment of a mid-June 2005 piece in the New York Times, which confirmed the statistics that the Pentagon has provided as well as the assessment of their reliability.
[T]he American command says that there are now 107 battalions of Iraqi troops and paramilitary police units, totaling 169,000 men. The total is set to rise to 270,000 by next summer, when 10 fully equipped 14,000-man Iraqi army divisions are scheduled to be operational. But figures alone tell only part of the story, since only three of the battalions now deployed are rated fully operational by the Americans, and many others are far behind in terms of manpower, training and equipment” (emphasis mine).4
Reports from the visit of a congressional delegation to Iraq at the end of May 2005 reveal as well that the congressmen were told that “the United States is at least two years away from adequately training a viable Iraqi military.”5 Biden, who took part in the visit, reiterated the NYT statistic on ABC's This Week: of the “107 battalions … trained … and in uniform,” he said, “only three – three – are fully operational, and three are close …. ”6A recent newscast from Australia quoted Australian National University Lecturer in International Relations and Strategy Michael McKinley to the effect that
there are too many reports coming out and openly expressed, it has to be said, by U.S. military enlisted men and by their officers, that the gearing up of a competent new Iraqi military is at least five to 10 years off. And that really is a figure that is just put forward because no one quite knows.1
The whole situation has about it the air of Hitler's bunker in the last months and weeks of World War II, when army units that only existed on paper were ordered into battle. David Isenberg of the British and American Security Council put his assessment quite bluntly: “[D]isaster is too polite a word.”2
Regardless of how many there are, pro-“government” Iraqi forces are not much good to the U.S. if they're working for the insurgency, or dead. As for the former, a recent Newsweek paints a grim picture of what it calls the insurgents' most powerful weapon: “a vast network of infiltrators, spies, and recruiters.” According to Baghdad intelligence officials who go unnamed to protect their clearances, Iraq's security services
have hundreds of “ghost soldiers” – members who vanish, sometimes for months on end, but continue to draw their pay. The fear is that they are working for the insurgency while keeping up their ties in uniform. Early on, when training procedures were still being defined, U.S. forces tried to institute a program to screen Iraqi recruits …. [T]he process began with a preliminary interview with the enlistee. If he passed, vetting agents went on to do a background check on the individual as well as on key family members. But with pressure on to find an exit strategy for Iraq – and to build significant Iraqi forces fast – a lot of doubtful characters seem to have slipped through the cracks. Gaps in the process were quickly exploited in a strategic campaign of infiltration by the insurgency.3
This narrative is consistent with many of the reports that come from Iraq. The attempt on the life of the Wolf Brigade commander by one of its members, detailed above, is one such example. Another is the testimony of a U.S. Army captain who spent a year in Iraq as an intelligence officer and returned in February. “Infiltration of the police by insurgents poses a critical problem,” he said, and “[s]ometimes the police even act in cahoots with the insurgents.”4 Any tally of effective Iraqi security forces should also exclude those such as “the 14,000 blue-uniformed Iraqi police in Nineveh Province, the capital of which is Mosul,” where, according to comments made to the British Independent on Sunday by
Khasro Goran, the deputy governor there, “the police had helped insurgents assassinate the previous governor.” He further related that
when guerrillas captured almost all of Mosul on November 11, 2004, the police collaborated, abandoning 30 police stations without a fight …. Some $40 million worth of arms and equipment was captured by the insurgents.1
The reporter who took Goran's testimony noted simply that “[i]t is a measure of how far the reality of the war in Iraq now differs from the rosy picture presented by the media that the fall of Mosul to the insurgents went almost unreported abroad.”2 As if the infiltration of security forces weren't enough, complaints have even surfaced that some Iraqi judges are meting out light sentences for those who “have hoarded or transported huge stashes of bombs, machine-guns, and rocket-propelled grenades” in order to show “a degree of sympathy with the insurgents.”3
On February 3, 2005, Paul Wolfowitz confirmed before the Senate Armed Services Committee that 1,342 Iraqi police, soldiers and National Guards had been killed between June 2004 and January 2005.4 The figure was out of date the moment it was uttered, as can be gauged from a June 2005 report from the Boston Globe which said, “So far this year, nearly 1,000 members of Iraq's police and security forces have been killed in attacks, almost as many as the total for the previous year and a half, according to Pentagon figures.”5 It is ultimately questionable how accurate these reports are, for reliable figures on the deaths of recruits and trainees are elusive, notwithstanding the statistics kept for every other part of the “Iraqi forces” training program. As the New York Times confirmed, “American officers, with statistics for virtually every other aspect of the program, say they have none on the numbers of Iraqis killed in attacks.”6
Neo-Conned! Again Page 99
