Following questioning of Defense Secretary Gates on the issue of the Webb proposal to increase the time at home for troops to a year, in which the SecDef stated that he would support a veto of such a measure, Joe Biden responded back that Webb's measure is neccesary because - We Are Breaking the Military.
Gates: I think really, pretty much it's a backdoor effort to accelerate the drawdown so that it's an automatic kind of thing rather than based on the conditions on the ground.
As if the current drawdown plan isn't an automatic kind of thing already at least according to testimony of Gen Patreaus'.
"Yes, the surge forces were scheduled to go home between April and mid-July, that is absolutely right,"
The surge had to end by April. There's been minimal political progress since the surge began, most of the security progress which had been acomplished by Sunni tribesman in Al Anbar began before the surge even started and the fact that much of the civil strife has begun to burn out on it's own now that all the serious work of ethnic cleansing has been completed.
So who's kidding who around here?
Gates: We would have force management problems that would be extremely difficult and, in fact, create, I think would effect combat effectiveness and perhaps pose graater risk to our troops.
Really? How so?
Gates: We would have to be looking at gapping units, where a unit pulling out would not be immediately replaced so you'd have an area of combat operations where no U.S. troops are present and the unit coming in would face greater risks.
But what about that vast 200,000 man Iraqi Army we've been training for the last three years, couldn't they be used to fill those "gaps" while our troop rotate back home? And if they aren't available can't we just find another warlord/thug/ex-insurgent/gangster like the late great Sheik Sattar to hold the line??
I guess not.
We'd have to cobble to together units, we'd have to track the service of each individual soldier.
Pardon me, but aren't they already supposed to be tracking the service of each individual soldier?
In response Biden, whose son is scheduled to be deployed to Iraq in 2008, had this to say.
BIDEN: What are the consequences of continuing to do what we’re doing with essentially the way in which we’re deploying these troops? As the military said we’re breaking, we’re breaking the United States military. Flat breaking it. And what we’re doing is we’re going to end up in a situation where you don’t have people signing up. you’re gonna end up having to go to draft. This long-term consequence, keeping these kind of deployments is absolutely disastrous for the United States of America and for the United States military. It’s not a good thing the other way either. You choose two very bad alternatives. One very bad and one okay. If you don’t figure out how to get these folks some time home, you are gonna break, break this military. That’s what this is about. and we can do what we need to do in Iraq with significantly fewer troops. That is my contention and the contention of a whole lot of other people outside this administration.
As thinkprogres points out, it's not just people outside the Administration who feel that we can get the job done in Iraq with fewer troops - it's also the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army Chief of Staff and other generals.
- Joint Chiefs Chairman Peter Pace: Pace "is expected to advise President Bush to reduce the U.S. force in Iraq next year by almost half" and "is likely to convey concerns by the Joint Chiefs that keeping well in excess of 100,000 troops in Iraq through 2008 will severely strain the military." [8/24/07]
- Army Chief of Staff George Casey: "Right now we have in place deployment and mobilization policies that allow us to meet the current demands. If the demands don’t go down over time, it will become increasingly difficult for us to provide the trained and ready forces." [8/20/07]
- Commanding General Odierno: "We know that the surge of forces will come at least through April at the latest, April of ‘08, and then we’ll have to start to reduce...we know that they will start to reduce in April of ‘08 at the latest." [8/26/07]
- Army Secretary Peter Geren:"[T]he service’s top official, recently said he sees ‘no possibility’ of extending the duty tours of US troops beyond 15 months." [8/30/07]
- Former Secretary of State Colin Powell: "[T]hey probably can’t keep this up at this level past the middle of next year, I would guess. This is a tremendous burden on our troops." [7/18/07]
In additional to all this there is also the views of Gen. Patreaus direct commander Gen Admiral William Fallon, head of CentCom.
The polite discussion in the White House Situation Room a week ago masked a sharper clash over the U.S. venture in Iraq, one that has been building since Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command, which oversees Middle East operations, sent a rear admiral to Baghdad this summer to gather information. Soon afterward, officials said, Fallon began developing plans to redefine the U.S. mission and radically draw down troops.
One of those plans, according to a Centcom officer, involved slashing U.S. combat forces in Iraq by three-quarters by 2010.
This is also consistent with the testimony of Gen James Jones.
JONES: [W]e can consider taking a look at our footprint, taking a look at how many people we have in Iraq, how many bases we have, how many locations we have, and begin to think about ways in which we can realign the force, retask the force, and even remission it, so that we can gradually adjust our footprint and our military commanders can do it.
SKELTON: Does that mean reduce?
JONES: Sir?
SKELTON: Does that mean reduce our force?
JONES: It means — it means finding efficiencies and it means — yes, it means making a candid assessment of who’s over there, who absolutely needs to be there, critically, and making sure that we are operating at peak efficiency and don’t have excessive capacity simply over there because it’s their time to go.
So contrary to Gates claims, we can and should not only limit the deployments of our troops according to several key members of the President's own command team we should be looking a far more intensive drawdown of forces than the President has proposed - with little or no risk to the integrity of the mission.
Which was what again by the way? WMD's? Loose Nukes? Al Qeada? Insurgents? Elections? Democracy? Peace? Flowers and Candy? Protecting America?
I know I've lost track, and I think Gates has too.
Vyan
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