Just a Bump in the Beltway

Defense officials look at extending tours of duty in Iraq

WASHINGTON | The Pentagon is considering a plan to extend the tours of duty for up to 15,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq, a defense official said Monday.

Because Gen. David Petraeus, U.S. commander in Iraq, thinks that the recent increase in troops has produced some momentum in fighting violence in Iraq, he wants to maintain troops at the increased level past the summer, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Defense officials are looking at the idea of a maximum 120-day extension for five active-duty brigades.

Also Monday, officials said about 13,000 National Guard troops are receiving notice to prepare for possible deployment to Iraq, the second tour for many.

They are the Army National Guard’s 39th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, based in Little Rock, Ark.; the 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Oklahoma City; the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Indianapolis; and the 37th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, Columbus, Ohio.

One unit would deploy in December and the others in 2008, the Army said.

The fact of the matter is that the morale of US soldiers in Iraq and those scheduled to be sent to Iraq is very low. The ranks of those who are seeking a quick exit from military service now include career soldiers and non-commissioned officers -- the backbone of the military (Financial Times, March 3-4, 2007, p.2) Unauthorized absences (AWOLs) have shot up -- 14,000 between 2000-2005 (FT, ibid). In March over a thousand active duty and reserve soldiers and marines petitioned Congress for a US withdrawal from Iraq. The opposition of retired and active Generals to Bush’s escalation of troops percolates down the ranks to the ‘grunts’ on the ground, especially among reservists on active duty whose tours of duty in Iraq have been repeatedly extended (the ‘backdoor draft’). Demoralizing prolonged stays or rapid rotation undermines any effort of ‘consolidating ties’ between US and Iraqi officers and certainly undermines most efforts to win the confidence of the local population. If the US troops are deeply troubled by the war in Iraq and increasingly subject to desertion and demoralization, how less reliable is the Iraqi mercenary army. Iraqis recruited on the basis of hunger and unemployment (caused by the US war), with kinship, ethnic and national ties to a free and independent Iraq do not make reliable soldiers. Every serious expert has concluded that the divisions in Iraqi society are reflected in the loyalties of the soldiers.

General Petraeus, count your troops everyday, because a few more will stray and perhaps in the future you will face an empty drill field or, worse, a barrack revolt. The continued high casualty rates among US soldiers and Iraqi civilians, during your first month as Commander suggests that ‘holding and securing’ Baghdad failed to alter the overall situation.

William Lind says:

If we consider the operational and strategic situations in Iraq, we can easily see why no amount of tactical success can save us. Strategically, we are fighting to support a Shiite regime closely aligned with Iran, our most potent local opponent. Every tactical success merely moves us closer to giving Iran a new ally in the form of a restored Iraqi state under Shiite domination. The more tactical successes we win, the worse our strategic situation gets. This flows not from any tactical failure (though there have been plenty of those), but from botching the strategic level from the outset. Saddam's Iraq was the main regional counterweight to Iran, which means we should not have attacked it.

Operationally, we have been maneuvered by Iraq's Shiites into fighting their civil war for them, focusing our efforts against the Sunnis. As I have observed before, we are in effect the Shiites unpaid Hessians. That is why Muqtada al-Sadr has ordered his Mahdi Army not to fight us in Sadr City. It is not that he is afraid of us; he is simply making a rational operational decision.