Henk RuyssenaarsMore quagmire? US Army planning for four more years in IraqSun Aug 21, 2005 04:2362.194.184.133
Here is the flawed logic, the same studpidity as I've seen happening in Vietnam: "We are alone in the world in this invasion. The insurgency is growing. There is no visible prospect of success:
Therefore: let's send more troops?"
"Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted by the Military Order of the World Wars, a veterans’ organization." What kind of 'Vets' are these? I remember Schoomaker (Schuhmacher) well enough, and did this item on him which got some funny comments, two years ago - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/8uw9r
Army planning for four more years in Iraq
Top general says U.S. military prepared for 'worst case'
Aug. 20, 2005 - WASHINGTON - The Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq — well over 100,000 — for four more years, the Army’s top general said Saturday.
In an Associated Press* interview, Gen. Peter Schoomaker said the Army is prepared for the “worse case” in terms of the required level of troops in Iraq. He said the number could be adjusted lower if called for by slowing the force rotation or by shortening tours for soldiers.
Schoomaker said commanders in Iraq and others who are in the chain of command will decide how many troops will be needed next year and beyond. His responsibility is to provide them, trained and equipped.
About 138,000 U.S. troops, including about 25,000 Marines, are now in Iraq.
“We are now into ’07-’09 in our planning,” Schoomaker said, having completed work on the set of combat and support units that will be rotated into Iraq over the coming year for 12-month tours of duty.
Beyond Bush's term
Schoomaker’s comments come amid indications from Bush administration officials and commanders in Iraq that the size of the U.S. force may be scaled back next year if certain conditions are achieved. Among those conditions: an Iraqi constitution must be drafted in coming days; it must be approved in a national referendum; and elections must be held for a new government under that charter.
Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyond President Bush’s term in office, which ends in January 2009.
Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted by the Military Order of the World Wars, a veterans’ organization. “We’re staying 18 months to two years ahead of ourselves” in planning which active-duty and National Guard and Reserve units will be provided to meet the commanders’ needs, Schoomaker said in the interview.
Changes in troop rotations
The main active-duty combat units that are scheduled to go to Iraq in the coming year are the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. Both did one-year tours earlier in the war.
The Army has changed the way it arranges troop rotations.
Instead of sending a full complement of replacement forces each 12-month cycle, it is stretching out the rotation over two years.
The current rotation, for 2005-07, will overlap with the 2006-08 replacements. Beyond that, the Army is piecing together the plan for the 2007-09 switch, Schoomaker said.
With the recent deployments of National Guard brigades from Georgia and Pennsylvania, the National Guard has seven combat brigades in Iraq — the most of the entire war — plus thousands of support troops.
Along with the Army Reserve and Marine Reserve, they account for about 40 percent of the total U.S. forces in Iraq. Schoomaker said that will be scaled back next year to about 25 percent as newly expanded active-duty divisions such as the 101st Airborne enter the rotation.
Deadly month
August has been the deadliest month of the war for the National Guard and Reserve, with at least 42 fatalities thus far. Schoomaker disputed the suggestion by some that the Guard and Reserve units are not fully prepared for the hostile environment of Iraq.
“I’m very confident that there is no difference in the preparation” of active-duty soldiers and the reservists, who normally train one weekend a month and two weeks each summer, unless they are mobilized. Once called to active duty, they go through the same training as active-duty units.
In internal surveys, some in the reserve forces have indicated to Army leaders that they think they are spending too much time in pre-deployment training, not too little, Schoomaker said.
“Consistently, what we’ve been (hearing) is, ‘We’re better than you think we are, and we could do this faster,”’ he said. “I can promise you that we’re not taking any risk in terms of what we’re doing to prepare people.” [enditem]
Original story at - 2005 MSNBC.com - URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9022420/
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The definition of fanaticism is, that when you discover that you are going in the wrong direction, you redouble your speed.
But the first step is to support our troops in the only way that word support can have real meaning - by saving their lives, their limbs, their sanity.
By 'bringing them home', and stopping this war which by the neocons is based on lies and decption, as Cindy Sheehan and all other mourning people are saying: what is the so called 'noble cause'? Why do they have to die for Israel or the profit of the neocons?
Because, every day the followers of war criminals like Bush, Blair and the evil brain Kissinger; Feith, Wolfowitz, Perle, Weinstein, Goldberg, Cohen, Levi, and all the inhuman Washington's warmongering neocons proof the saying that:
'Nobody is blinder, than one who does not want to see'.
Blindest are the Dead.
Henk Ruyssenaars
IMPORTANT LINKS CONCERNING THE WAR IN IRAQ:
* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - UN's Kofi Annan/BBC - Url.: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3661134.stm
* Howard Zinn - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6wmp4 - 2005 Miami Herald
* Canadian writer Paul Harris - US ''Peace Lovers'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/72eyy
* The deplorable US military history - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5sa2c
* Transcript: Condoleezza Rice on 'Fox News Sunday' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6jgsx - FPF - Condoleezza Rice, the world's 'Black Plague' and her gringo-vultures - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/9ppyk
* Holding elections in occupied territory is according to the Geneva Conventions and all international Law illegal! - The faked coming 'elections' in Iraq in September too, like this one - 'Hollow Election Held on Bloody Day' - Inter Press Service* - Dahr Jamail/Baghdad - Url.: http://dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/
* ''The Lancet'' and the ''Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health'' - ''Over 100.000 killed
in the illegal Iraq war'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5gys7
* Bush interv. ABC: No WMD's - many killed: "It was worth it". - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6bal9
* Former Secr. of State Madeleine Albright in her comment on half a milli on dead children in Iraq: "We think it's worth it" On CBS 60' Minutes: - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/2vmc8
* Iraq Body Count - Url.: http://www.iraqbodycount.net/
* A crime against humanity is an act of persecution against a group, so heinous as to warrant punishment under international law: Please scroll - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6rphj
* Gore Vidal on our bleak future - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/4ydyz
* Latest international 'Google News' on the fake election and the violence in Iraq - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/ccoxq
* Former PM Kok and other Dutch government's war criminals heard in Court - Url: http://tinyurl.com/662pp - It can be done!
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