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News :: Iraq : Labor : Political-Economy : Regime |
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How the Pentagon Has Failed US Troops |
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by Paul Rieckhoff and Dafna Hochman
(No verified email address) |
01 Sep 2004
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These four policies, the result of poor military and strategic planning at the Pentagon, are hurting Americans who have volunteered to serve during wartime. This week in New York, the president and the Republican Party will proudly celebrate their security accomplishments. Yet the baseline test of a government's national security credibility during wartime should be its authentic compassion for its soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen and women and their families. |
In the 16 months since President George W. Bush landed on the U.S. aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln and declared major combat activities in Iraq complete, the nearly 400,000 U.S. service men and women deployed in active duty around the globe have faced unprecedented difficulties.
By now, the litany of strategic miscalculations in Iraq by civilian leaders at the Pentagon is well known. What the public and news media often neglect, however, are the less publicized policies that have quietly but insidiously undermined American troops, making it increasingly challenging to fight under the U.S. flag.
Four major Pentagon policies in the past year have undermined the morale of U.S. troops and their families - and are likely to leave a negative long-term impact on the ability of the armed services to recruit and retain service members in the long term.
First, in the dog days of August 2003, while Congress recessed, the Pentagon quietly cut payments for imminent danger and family separation. Earlier that summer, Congress had given the nearly 150,000 U.S. troops serving in Iraq and the 9,000 serving in Afghanistan a $75 a month imminent danger pay increase and a $150 monthly allowance to fund rent and child care for their families at home. The administration cited budgetary concerns for this pay cut. Yet the two payments totaled approximately $450 million - a meager amount next to the $400 billion 2003 defense budget or the $166 billion spent in 2003 on supplemental spending bills for Iraq and Afghanistan.
The White House reluctantly agreed to reinstate the bonuses after outrage in the press and Congress, but had already sent a damaging, demoralizing message to troops in the field: compensating service members would be among the last priorities in war time.
Second, by autumn 2003 it had become apparent that the U.S. troops on the front lines in Iraq were inadequately equipped. Their Humvee vehicles were not designed to withstand front-line combat and soon became the target of choice for insurgents. And by October 2003, although Congress had allocated funds for all U.S. troops to wear 16-pound, ceramic-plated Interceptor body armor, as many as 51,000 American soldiers and civilian administrators in Iraq still had not been equipped with the gear.
Family members of the service men and women serving in Iraq recognized the equipment shortage. Throughout America, worried parents and spouses bought expensive flak jackets and other critical gear and sent it to their loved ones by FedEx. For almost a year, until new flak jackets and heavily armored Humvees arrived, U.S. troops confronted the dangers in Iraq with inadequate equipment and protection.
Third, though the Pentagon had not planned sufficiently to protect and equip U.S. troops, in early September 2003 it decided to lengthen the deployment of nearly 20,000 National Guard and Reservists serving in Iraq. Over the following 11 months, more than 50,000 National Guard and Reservists would be deployed abroad; they now make up 40 percent of the 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. These "citizen-soldiers," who had expected to serve one weekend a month, were now being sent for unknown and ever extended durations to the front lines, leaving behind families and full time jobs. These National Guard and Reservists are often the sole family breadwinners, and many work in local police and fire departments, so their absence weakens already insufficient local and state first-response capabilities.
Fourth, the Pentagon has grown increasingly unreliable in the eyes of the troops as it changes the rules of the game when the going gets tough. Faced with desperate troop shortages, particularly in the army, the administration has begun to disregard its agreements with service members. In June 2003, the Pentagon announced a Stop Loss policy to keep more than 10,000 service members in the field beyond their enlistment period. In other words, troops stationed in Kandahar or Najaf or about to be deployed Iraq or Afghanistan who were nearing the end of their service contracts are now being forced to remain in combat - involuntarily drafted for at least 90 days or until their unit is redeployed home. This back-door draft targets already battle-weary troops who have sacrificed the most and fought the hardest.
These four policies, the result of poor military and strategic planning at the Pentagon, are hurting Americans who have volunteered to serve during wartime. This week in New York, the president and the Republican Party will proudly celebrate their security accomplishments. Yet the baseline test of a government's national security credibility during wartime should be its authentic compassion for its soldiers, marines, sailors, and airmen and women and their families.
Lieutenant Paul Rieckhoff recently returned from Iraq, where he led a platoon in the 3rd Infantry Division for 10 months. He is founder and executive director of Operation Truth, an advocacy and educational organization created to support American troops in Iraq. Dafna Hochman, a doctoral student in political science at Columbia University, was a foreign policy and defense adviser in the U.S. Senate.
Copyright © 2004 the International Herald Tribune
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See also:
http://www.optruth.org/
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