The shocking news on Monday was the fact that General Pete Schoomaker, Chief of Staff of the Army, decided that the Army's readiness is at great peril and that he had to take action. He has stated that the service's designated budget of $98.2 billion is insufficient, and unless he can submit a budget at $138.8 billion, he'd rather not submit a budget at all. And here I thought Schoomaker was bought and paid for by Rumsfeld when the SecDef took him out of retirement.
"It's kind of like the old rancher saying: 'I'm going to size the herd to the amount of hay that I have,' " said Lt. Gen. Jerry L. Sinn, the Army's top budget official. "[Schoomaker] can't size the herd to the size of the amount of hay that he has because he's got to maintain the herd to meet the current operating environment."
The Army, with an active-duty force of 504,000, has been stretched by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. About 400,000 have done at least one tour of combat duty, and more than a third of those have been deployed twice. Commanders have increasingly complained of the strain, saying last week that sustaining current levels will require more help from the National Guard and Reserve or an increase in the active-duty force.
There ought to be no question that the Army deserves a bigger cut of the defense pie, beyond it's usual third, due to its greater involvement in the Middle East operations and the lack of any significant increases since 2003. But at the same time, I can't see the Future Combat System surviving - it's got to be either repairing the Army or maintaining a modernization process. We can't do both.
In other news, the Senate Democrat Policy Committee hosted two retired Army generals: MG (ret) John Batiste, former 1st Infantry Division cdr (2004-2005) and MG (ret) Paul Eaton, Iraq Mil/Pol trainer in 2003-2004. Col (ret) Thomas Hammes (USMC), noted author and military adviser in Iraq in 2004, also joined them. All three called for Rumsfeld to retire, criticizing the current conduct of the war. I watched a little of it at work - it was riveting testimony.
"Secretary Rumsfeld's dismal strategic decisions resulted in the unnecessary deaths of American servicemen and women, our allies, and the good people of Iraq," Batiste said. "He was responsible for America and her allies going to war with the wrong plan and a strategy that did not address the realities of fighting an insurgency."
Eaton told the panel, "We went in with a bad plan," adding that "stay the course is not a strategy."
Hammes said removing the regime of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein "introduced major instability not just in Iraq, but in the greater Middle East." And while the Bush administration has repeatedly said the war in Iraq is critical to U.S. security, "it has asked nothing of the majority of U.S. citizens," he said.
A summary of the testimony is in the Washington Post. The Army generals recommended, among other things, a permanent increase to the Army's end strength of 60,000 personnel. All three basically agreed with the recently released National Intelligence Assessment on Iraq, which has basically said that the situation in Iraq has gotten worse over the past three years. Of course, you don't have to tell that to the 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division - they just got a six-week extension to their one-year tour of duty in Iraq. And meanwhile, recent news reports note that there are only two or three uncommitted Army brigades that are fully ready for crisis response. Swell.
Finally, it's good to know it's never too late to welcome lost soldiers home from an overseas war. Private Francis Lupo of Cincinnati is returning from France to be buried in Arlington Cemetery. He died at the tender age of 23, probably in the first days of the 1st Infantry Division's action in World War I. Welcome home, soldier.
I must admit to being shocked when I heard that Schoomaker defied the tradition of Army brass saying,"Yes, sir, that budget is plenty big enough, sir," even when they know that the budget is waaaayyy too small and that they can't possibly meet the mission with the proposed budget. This is a new kind of rebellion within the ranks, in my opinion: Soldiers who are willing to defy their Commander in Chief (the same one who gives millions in tax breaks to his buddies while starving the military) on matters of budget so that they can do the job they were hired to do, and have what they need to protect their soldiers while they are at war. I am delighted to see this turn of affairs, but I have no confidence that the right-wingnuts and asshats will pay any attention. They will see these soldiers as seditious, rather than as the heroes that they really are.
Posted by: Ann Gaothin | 26 September 2006 at 05:37 PM