Pentagon may punish GIs who spoke out on TV
CAREERS OVER FOR SOME
"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."
First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.
Nice... just a quick reminder to anyone thinking about going into the military or even those of you in the military already: They OWN you when you join up. They can send you off to die, perform bizarre experiments on you, whatever they want. That's the deal when you join the USMil. You also get to serve your country and when the leadership is good, it's a pretty good job. But with Rumsfeld and Bush in charge... keep your mouth shut, apparently...
Meanwhile, from the Associated Press and Boston.com on July 19, 2003:
U.S. soldier killed guarding Baghdad bank, military wraps up two operations
A U.S. soldier was fatally shot guarding a bank Saturday in the capital, while the U.S. military concluded two separate sweeps in and around Baghdad arresting more than 1,200 people and seizing weapons, explosives and ammunition, the military said.
The death came a day after two separate attacks on convoys in which one soldier was killed. It brought to 149 the number of U.S. personnel killed in combat since the March 20 start of the war two more than the 1991 Gulf War total for U.S. deaths in combat.
Nice to see that it's not just freedom of speech the USMil is limiting, but also the Iraqi's right to bear arms! Let's hear it for the AMERICAN WAY!!
Ah-ha and then from SanLUisObispo.com on July 18, 2003:
U.S. struggling to find replacement troops
The Pentagon is scrambling to find enough fresh troops to begin an orderly rotation program that would bring home some of the 147,000 soldiers spread thinly across troubled Iraq.
With the new commanding general of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, confirming what others in the Defense Department had been reluctant to admit - that United States forces face an increasingly deadly guerrilla war - the question of relief and rotation for weary GIs moved to the front burner.
They're not talking a draft yet, but how far away can it be with US soldiers dying every day and those that aren't dying want to go home?
Again, we sink deeper...
From San Francisco Chronicle/SFGate.com:
From the Associated Press and Boston.com:Pentagon may punish GIs who spoke out on TV
Friday, July 18, 2003
Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Fallujah, Iraq -- Morale is dipping pretty low among U.S. soldiers as they stew in Iraq's broiling heat, get shot at by an increasingly hostile population and get repeated orders to extend their tours of duty.
Ask any grunt standing guard on a 115-degree day what he or she thinks of the open-ended Iraq occupation, and you'll get an earful of colorful complaints.
But going public isn't always easy, as soldiers of the Army's Second Brigade, Third Infantry Division found out after "Good Morning America" aired their complaints.
The brigade's soldiers received word this week from the Pentagon that it was extending their stay, with a vague promise to send them home by September if the security situation allows. They've been away from home since September, and this week's announcement was the third time their mission has been extended.
It was bad news for the division's 12,000 homesick soldiers, who were at the forefront of the force that overthrew Saddam Hussein's government and moved into Baghdad in early April.
On Wednesday morning, when the ABC news show reported from Fallujah, where the division is based, the troops gave the reporters an earful. One soldier said he felt like he'd been "kicked in the guts, slapped in the face." Another demanded that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld quit.
The retaliation from Washington was swift.
CAREERS OVER FOR SOME
"It was the end of the world," said one officer Thursday. "It went all the way up to President Bush and back down again on top of us. At least six of us here will lose our careers."
First lesson for the troops, it seemed: Don't ever talk to the media "on the record" -- that is, with your name attached -- unless you're giving the sort of chin-forward, everything's-great message the Pentagon loves to hear.
Only two days before the ABC show, similarly bitter sentiments -- with no names attached -- were voiced in an anonymous e-mail circulating around the Internet, allegedly from "the soldiers of the Second Brigade, Third ID."
"Our morale is not high or even low," the letter said. "Our morale is nonexistent. We have been told twice that we were going home, and twice we have received a 'stop' movement to stay in Iraq."
The message, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, concluded: "Our men and women deserve to be treated like the heroes they are, not like farm animals. Our men and women deserve to see their loved ones again and deserve to come home."
After this one-two punch, it was perhaps natural that on Thursday, the same troops and officers who had been garrulous and outspoken in previous visits were quiet, and most declined to speak on the record. During a visit to Fallujah, a small city about 30 miles west of Baghdad, military officials expressed intense chagrin about the bad publicity. And they slammed the ABC reporters for focusing on the soldiers' criticism of Rumsfeld, Bush and other officials and implying that they are unwilling to carry out their mission.
COMPLAINTS CALLED ROUTINE
"Soldiers have bitched since the beginning of time," said Capt. James Brownlee, the public affairs officer for the Second Brigade. "That's part of being a soldier. They bitch. But what does 'bad morale' really mean? That they're not combat-ready or loyal? Nobody here fits that definition."
The nervousness of the brass has a venerable history. It has long been a practice in American democracy that the military do not criticize the nation's civilian leaders, as Gen. Douglas MacArthur found out in 1951, when he criticized President Harry Truman's Korean War strategy -- and was promptly fired.
Yet several U.S. officers said privately that troop morale is indeed low. "The problem is not the heat," said one high-ranking officer. "Soldiers get used to that. The problem is getting orders to go home, so your wife gets all psyched about it, then getting them reversed, and then having the same process two more times."
In Baghdad, average soldiers from other Army brigades are eager to spill similar complaints.
"I'm not sure people in Washington really know what it's like here," said Corp. Todd Burchard as he stood on a street corner, sweating profusely and looking bored. "We'll keep doing our jobs as best as anyone can, but we shouldn't have to still be here in the first place."
Nearby, Pfc. Jason Ring stood next to his Humvee. "We liberated Iraq. Now the people here don't want us here, and guess what? We don't want to be here either," he said. "So why are we still here? Why don't they bring us home?"©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
From SanLUisObispo.com:U.S. soldier killed guarding Baghdad bank, military wraps up two operations
By Paul Haven, Associated Press, 7/19/2003 03:52
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A U.S. soldier was fatally shot guarding a bank Saturday in the capital, while the U.S. military concluded two separate sweeps in and around Baghdad arresting more than 1,200 people and seizing weapons, explosives and ammunition, the military said.
The death came a day after two separate attacks on convoys in which one soldier was killed. It brought to 149 the number of U.S. personnel killed in combat since the March 20 start of the war two more than the 1991 Gulf War total for U.S. deaths in combat.
The soldier guarding the Baghdad bank died at about 2 a.m. outside the Al-Rasheed Bank in western Baghdad, Corp. Todd Pruden said.
Pruden also announced that a U.S. serviceman was injured Friday when the convoy he was in was attacked north of Baghdad with small arms fire, rocket propelled grenades and mortars. Three vehicles in the convoy were damaged in the attack in Muqdadiyah, 60 miles northwest of the capital, Pruden said.
In another convoy attack Friday, a U.S. soldier was killed when a bomb was detonated by remote control at a traffic circle near the main bridge over the Euphrates River in Fallujah, a city west of Baghdad.
The military also announced it had wrapped up two sweeps dubbed Operation Ivy Serpant and Operation Soda Mountain earlier in the week. Some 1,210 people were detained in the two operations, including 112 people suspected of close ties to the former Saddam Hussein regime.
The operations, which both ended Thursday, netted some 6,000 mortar rounds, more than 1,400 rocket propelled grenades, explosives, AK-47 assault rifles and other weapons. None of those captured, however, were among those still at large from a list of 55 most wanted Iraqis from the former regime.
U.S. authorities have captured 34 people on the list, but not Saddam or his two sons.
A U.S. intelligence official speaking on condition of anonymity said Friday that a new audio recording purportedly by Saddam urging Iraqis to continue a ''holy war'' against U.S. forces is probably authentic and recent further evidence Saddam survived the war. The message was aired Thursday, the 35th anniversary of the coup that brought Saddam's Baath Party to power.
Violence against U.S. troops has been concentrated in Iraq's ''Sunni Triangle,'' stretching north and west from Baghdad.
At a major Sunni mosque in Baghdad, formerly known as the Mother of all Battles Mosque, preacher Khalid al-Dari called Friday for the Americans to leave Iraq and said the new U.S.-appointed government ''will enshrine Iraq's sectarian differences.''
Iraq's minority Sunni Muslims have long ruled the country, and many of them fear Saddam's ouster will swing the balance of power to majority Shiites. The new 25-member ruling council, appointed by the Americans, has a slim Shiite majority.
But imams at some Shiite mosques also had harsh words for the Americans.
Muqtada al-Sadr, addressing thousands of Shiites at a mosque in the central holy city of Kufa, vowed to establish a council ''of the righteous'' that would rival the new government.
Al-Sadr said the government is comprised of ''nonbelievers'' who don't represent the people.
''We will not cooperate with the council,'' he told the crowd. ''We will form our own council. Iraq will then have two councils: one of the wrongdoers and one of the righteous.''
''Zionists!'' the crowd chanted. ''Zionist council!''
In an interview later with The Associated Press, al-Sadr said he would launch a parallel government and draft a constitution in consultation with all the country's Islamic movements.
''Eventually, we'll have a referendum separate from the Americans and, God willing, elections separate from the Americans,'' he said.© Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
U.S. struggling to find replacement troops
Posted on Fri, Jul. 18, 2003
By JOSEPH L. GALLOWAY
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon is scrambling to find enough fresh troops to begin an orderly rotation program that would bring home some of the 147,000 soldiers spread thinly across troubled Iraq.
With the new commanding general of U.S. Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, confirming what others in the Defense Department had been reluctant to admit - that United States forces face an increasingly deadly guerrilla war - the question of relief and rotation for weary GIs moved to the front burner.
The easiest fix would be for the 14,000 foreign forces, mostly British, already in Iraq to be augmented by thousands more allied soldiers. But negotiations to internationalize the occupation have been slow and difficult.
Defense officials noted the difficulties by citing Hungary's offer to send a truck battalion with no trucks. Presumably the American military would have to supply the trucks for the Hungarians to drive.
The need for replacement troops is putting great strain on both the active and reserve forces already stretched thin meeting obligations in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan, South Korea, Bosnia, Kosovo, the Sinai - and a brigade-sized force of up to 5,000 troops expected to be deployed to peacekeeping duties in Liberia.
With only ten active duty divisions the 480,000-man U.S. Army has been stretched almost to the breaking point by the Iraq deployments. While Defense Secretary Donald L. Rumsfeld and his top civilian aides have talked in the past of chopping another two divisions out of that Army, some in Congress have begun urging an increase in the active Army by as much as 25 percent.
Outgoing Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, in his retirement speech last month, warned against loading 12 divisions worth of tasks on a 10-division Army. Last February Shinseki got in trouble with Rumsfeld for predicting before a Congressional committee that securing postwar Iraq might require more than 200,000 American soldiers.
Even more stressful have been the unprecedented demands placed on America's citizen-soldiers, the troops in the 900,000-strong Reserve and National Guard, over 200,000 of whom are on active duty. Some of them have been called up for more than a year already, placing great financial strains on their families and in many cases putting their civilian careers and businesses in jeopardy.
The likelihood of more Reserve and Guard call-ups for Iraq comes even as Rumsfeld has ordered an urgent study and the drafting of plans by month's end for a sweeping restructuring of those part-time forces that would shift a great deal of the burden back into the active military.
Pentagon officials said Rumsfeld's objective in rebalancing the Reserves and Guard is to ensure that every time the United States takes action in the world it does not automatically mean the call-up of large numbers of Reservists and Guard troops.
After the searing experience of Vietnam, Pentagon officials like former Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger took pains to guarantee that all of America would have a stake in future combat operations by putting such crucially needed units as the military police, air refueling tanker pilots and civil-military affairs specialists into the Reserve and Guard. Then, the theory went, almost every community in the nation would have to make a contribution to any war.
The CentCom commander says he is working to establish a one-year tour of duty in Iraq and to ensure that those troops who had been there the longest would be the first to rotate home.
That would be the U.S. Army's 15,000-man 3rd Mechanized Infantry Division, which spearheaded the 19-day drive to Baghdad. One brigade of that division has been in Kuwait and Iraq for nearly a year.
Pentagon officials said even more National Guard and Reserve troops may have to be called up for deployment to Iraq. Elements of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas, and the 25th Infantry Division based in Hawaii are likewise under consideration for deployment to Iraq.
Although top Defense Department officials had hoped that the numbers of U.S. troops required to secure Iraq would be swiftly declining to below 100,000 by now, this has not happened and does appear likely to happen with the confirmation that mid-level Baath Party die-hards and disgruntled Iraqi soldiers are organizing and conducting more sophisticated guerrilla operations against American soldiers.
Perhaps the most telling comment of all this past week came in a photograph circulating on the Internet which shows an Army truck roaring down a dusty Iraq road, obviously driven by a disgruntled Reservist, with a placard in the front window saying: "One weekend a month my a--."
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