The Daily Background
| Breaking: Defense Secretary extends 100% of tours in Iraq to 15 months
by Arlen Parsa
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced today that, in order to bolster the “surge,” the tours of duty for all active duty troops in Iraq will be extended from the normal 12 months to 15 months. There are presently about 145,000 troops presently in Iraq.
According to ABC’s non-scientific online snap poll, a majority disagrees with the Pentagon’s order extending deployments. (See below)
I wrote a report for The BRAD BLOG which was published on Monday, about how the Administration’s “surge” was turning out to be much larger and more expensive than initially advertised by both the Department of Defense and the White House. I also reported that the Pentagon was “short-changing” combat troops by deploying a lesser number of support personnel than typical for the surge:
… Combine all those figures together including the normal numbers of support personnel, and the surge adds up to an astounding 87,000 soldiers involved in one way or another.
However, the Defense Department is not sending their normal number of support personnel along with the “surged” troops, and instead is sending a lower ratio of support personnel than ever before in the four plus years of war in Iraq.
Instead of the typical 28,000 support personnel per 20,000 troops deployed which the Congressional Budget Office says is normal, Pentagon officials have said far fewer support personnel are needed for the initial 21,500 troop boost in Iraq. In March, Pentagon officials testified before the Senate, saying that only 7,000 more support personnel maximum would be deployed to Iraq in connection with the early stages of the surge, which officials project will “peak” in May. This reflects only a third of the normal ratio of support personnel to combat troops that have been used in the past.
Read the full report here.
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
Politicians make no difference.
We have bought into the Military Industrial Complex (MIC). If you would like to read how this happens please see:
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2007/03/spyagency200703
Through a combination of public apathy and threats by the MIC we have let the SYSTEM get too large. It is now a SYSTEMIC problem and the SYSTEM is out of control. Government and industry are merging and that is very dangerous.
There is no conspiracy. The SYSTEM has gotten so big that those who make it up and run it day to day in industry and government simply are perpetuating their existance.
The politicians rely on them for details and recommendations because they cannot possibly grasp the nuances of the environment and the BIG SYSTEM.
So, the system has to go bust and then be re-scaled, fixed and re-designed to run efficiently and prudently, just like any other big machine that runs poorly or becomes obsolete or dangerous.
This situation will right itself through trauma. I see a government ENRON on the horizon, with an associated house cleaning.
The next president will come and go along with his appointees and politicos. The event to watch is the collapse of the MIC.
For more details see:
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/inside-pentagon-procurement-from.html