Nine More Americans Killed Today In Iraq - While Army Reserves Reach Their Breaking Point

by Steve

Nine more US soldiers were killed in Iraq today, seven when their Bradley fighting vehicle struck a roadside bomb in Baghdad.

I wonder if that Bradley had adequate armor plating? At this rate, Rummy probably thinks that he has plenty of troops to last for years. To cope with the need for additional forces, the senior commander of the Army Reserves says he needs more flexibility in using his forces so that he can get more troops over to Iraq and Afghanistan. And those that are on the ground in Iraq are reporting that while our attention has been redirected by the US corporate media away from Iraq towards the Tsunami relief efforts, the insurgency has now evolved into a war less than a month before the elections.

So with our Army Reserves being stretched to the limit and on the verge of becoming a “broken force” in the words of their own commander, what does the Pentagon have in mind to deal with this in response to the plight of the Army Reserves? Making the situation even worse, that’s what.

Stretched thin by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army is considering a National Guard and Reserve policy shift that could result in part-timers being called to active duty multiple times for up to two years each time, a senior Army general said Thursday.

One reason that the National Guard and Reserve have been used so heavily over the past three years is that the active-duty Army is too small to meet the demands of war — particularly in Iraq, where troop levels have far exceeded original predictions — while also maintaining a presence in traditional areas of influence such as Europe and the Korean peninsula.

The Army now has about 660,000 troops on active duty, of which about 160,000 are members of the Guard and Reserve.

The Army wants them to be eligible for an unlimited number of call-ups, so long as no single mobilization lasts more than 24 months, the general said.

Under current policy set by Rumsfeld, a Guard or Reserve member is not to serve on active duty for more than 24 total months. Thus, for example, if a Guard or Reserve member was mobilized for six months after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and later for nine months in Afghanistan, then that person is off limits for duty in Iraq because a yearlong tour there would exceed the 24-month limit. A standard tour in Iraq, for both active-duty and reserves, is 12 months.

If the limit were set at 24 consecutive months, with some break between tours, then in theory a Guard or Reserve member could be mobilized for multiple 12- or 24-month tours in Iraq or elsewhere.

The National Guard, with about 350,000 members, and the 200,000-strong Reserve already are seeing signs of a slide in recruiting and retaining soldiers. Some may question whether a policy change that results in longer mobilizations could further erode the Guard and Reserve's ability to attract new soldiers and keep the ones it has.

The Guard in particular has been used so much in Iraq and Afghanistan that the Army now has deployed — or put on notice of plans to mobilize in 2005 — all 15 of its main combat brigades.

The Pentagon has finally run up against a wall in its ability to accommodate George W. Bush’s foreign policy. Even though the current use of the Guard and Reserves has gotten so bad that a quarter of our active troops are Guard or Reserve units, the Reserves’ commander says he needs to have more flexibility to deal with the tragic foreign policy failures and assumptions of this administration, even if it means extending tours of these part-time forces indefinitely.

Without a change in foreign policy, under this proposed policy the families of these Guard and Reservists face the prospect of continuous call-ups, taking them away repeatedly from their jobs and communities. Unless of course we resort to a draft. Either alternative will be politically lethal for this administration.