For most of the year, Army officials have been complaining that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are chewing up their money, their gear, and their troops. Now, Army chief of staff General Peter Schoomaker has made the loudest, most public plea yet.
As it currently stands, the Army is incapable of generating and sustaining the required forces to wage the Global War on Terror and fulfill all other operational requirements without its components – active, Guard, and Reserve – surging together…At this pace, without recurrent access to the reserve components, through remobilization, we will break the active component.
As the Washington Post notes, he’s calling for “expanding the [active duty] force by 7,000 or more soldiers a year [to a total of 512,000] and lifting Pentagon restrictions on involuntary call-ups of Army National Guard and Army Reserve troops.”
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. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today’s Pentagon policies is “not right.”
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.
Most observers say Schoomaker’s dire forecasts are on the money, and a long time coming. But Spencer Ackerman, for one, says the chief of staff “deserves no praise for the warning he issued yesterday.”
In February, when Rumsfeld had to go to the Hill to refute charges of breaking the Army, he brought Schoomaker along for insulation:
General Schoomaker points out that he remembers what a “broken” Army looks like when he was a young officer… The difference between that Army and the professional and motivated force we have today could not be more dramatic.
I don’t know what Ackerman is talking about – Rumsfeld has kept the Army leadership on a tight leash since he showed up. He should be talking about Schoomaker – a man the Rum-ster brought back from retirement to replace Eric Shinseki – has been openly contradicting his boss since October.
In my opinion, if anything indicated Rumsfeld’s declining power and presaged his ouster, it was Schoomaker’s direct plea to OMB for more money. The Army may be a stubborn organization, but it is the most reluctant of the services to contradict the civilian leadership. When it does, you know something serious is afoot.
The leadership of the U.S. Army are cowards.
They have repeatedly gone along with policies that they knew would not work, and have collaborated with Rumsfeld and Bush in their campaign to break the U.S. military by invading a country that did not threaten U.S. security, diverting resources from real threats, and sending the wrong troops on the wrong mission to the wrong place.
As a result, thousands have died, tens of thousands have been severely wounded (and then ignored by those supposed to help them), and the mission in Iraq — never achievable and long since lost — has brought the mission in Afghanistan and everywhere else in the world to the verge of catastrophe, as well.
Only after they retire, or after someone is fired, do the Army brass speak up. Only after anything they have to say is completely irrelevant, but their own financial and political position has been secured, do generals express any objection at all to the miserable mistakes and failures of the civilian leadership. They never admit their own.
More, as has been documented ad nausium, the U.S. Army has spent the last thirty years preparing for the wrong battle against the wrong enemy with the wrong doctrine and the wrong equipment. The military — including the so-called elite Special Forces — are more concerned with getting cool toys to play with than identifying a mission and getting the tools and training to deal with it.
BushCo said in the 2000 campaign that the military had been broken by the Clinton administration in Serbia, an operation in which not a single soldier died. They then took a healthy, if flawed, instrument and ground it to dust. America is more vulnerable now than we were on Sept 10, 2001, and the more vulnerable the Republicans make us, the more reason they say people should vote for them.
One can only hope that the last election indicates that at least some Americans have woken up, seen through the BushCo Republican scam, and realized how much BushCo threaten our rights and safety.
One can only hope that the military leadership in this country then realizes that they can straighten up from their cowering crouch and start telling the truth.
One can only hope.
There are no immediate or simple solution(s) to increasing troop strength without support of American public and congressional leadership agreement. Army physical and moral recruitment standards have been modified over the past 2 years enabling almost any person to join. The Army has been digging at the bottom of the pickle for new recruits for too long.
I personaly believe that Pentagon staff are making plans to expand conflict with Iran or other nations that support terrorism. Yes, that means a lot more ground troops–immediately.
I forsee only two ways in which enable the Army to meet staffing objectives. First is called– the “Backdraft” which means recalling prior service folks back to Active duty. The next very unpopular method is actual implementaion of the “Draft” for all young Americans from age 18 to 24.
Since the begining of the war in Iraq it has been all wrong. Not saying that the things that came out of it were wrong, but the things that are going to come. Suddam being yanked from power was bitter sweet, sweet because of the oppression he caused, bitter becasue he was a tyrant who ruled over other tyrants, judged them by there own inhuman laws. Now that we as the American force inters this circle of cut throats, we have slit our own wrists and have jumped in the shark tank. We punish our soldiers for fighting the war yet we cry that they are defending freedom. We publisize things that shouldn’t be. And on top of this, it goes back to square one poor leadership and foolish choices. In my opinion we are fighting a “Belief” and not a structured military force, not only this but a people that have been subject to death and combat since they were in diapers, and now we take spoon fed edjucated full pride armed with weapons out of highschool american boys and girls to go against them. IED’s (Improvised Explosive Devises) were not formed but a well funded and Military/Government trained group but by individuals who know how to survive. The general has stated a great point, and civil opinon will not help much but insightful suggestions may help. They have to work some time down the line, this has more to do with everyone than the American troops, 9-11 was aimed at civillians not military, and the path our leaders have taken now have created INSANITY – Doing the same actions expecting a different outcome.
North Korea is spoken of as new threat, Yemen, Jordan, Iran. If we are so spread thin then I think it’s time that the war councils, Pentagon, Senate and Congress truly re-think the things occurig over seas in Iraq. If we stay more of our boys and girls will die, if we leave they scream abbandonment and more terrorism occurs. Catch 22 damned if you damned if you don’t, the hornets nest has been stired so now we either send in more troops yearly, or we call for “Genocide” which this will never happen and I would NEVER suggest it but I mention it because when you fight an entity such as belief you merely reinact The Jews, Romans, and Christ in a blood thirsty circle in which only one aimed on and now this is how the world views us Americans, blood thirsty bullies trying to fix everyones problems.
BeyondPopper is far from the truth. first of all the U.S. Army has not been training for the wrong mission for the last thirty years. Ah popper do you rememember something called the “Cold War”, You know the 5000,000 or so soviet troops in in Eastern Europe, very heavily armed I might add, looking west. Well the U.S. Army was one very large reason they didn”t come west. By the way, Popper, that was mainly an armored standoff. The army got that one right. Also your cheap ass remarks about so called professionalism of the troops is lousy. let me tell you something. I have seen more professionalism in the U.S. military than I have in the civilian world. Popper you smack of ignorance in this matter.
I personally think it’s almost inevitable, we’re bound to undergo a prior service recall and may very well see a draft reinstatement. The presadent has already spread our military way too thin to a point we are vulnerable on our own home turf.We deffinatly don’t need to rile any more countries because the road we’re on right now we might end up a country against the world.