thedrifter
02-21-07, 07:33 AM
Burdens of war
Crumbling coalition.
Army Gen. David Petraeus just became the top U.S. commander in Iraq, but officially he's commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq. Pentagon press releases repeatedly refer to "coalition forces" and "MNF-Iraq."
This is meant to convey that it's not just the United States fighting in Iraq, but a group of allies, side by side in what President Bush calls the central front in the war on terror. That's always been something of a fiction, and it's becoming even more of one.
The 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq represent more than 90% of the foreign forces there. Of the more than 14,000 others, about half are British and the others are dispersed among some two dozen nations.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been Bush's most steadfast ally in Iraq, is expected to announce today plans to withdraw 1,500 British troops within weeks and another 1,500 by the end of the year.
In the last three years, amid the deteriorating security situation, 17 nations, including Spain, Italy and New Zealand, have pulled their troops out Iraq. Only the United States is surging more soldiers.
Since 2003, when Bush rushed to invade Iraq with a coalition of the willing and coerced, this has been a U.S.-led war. Yes, other foreign forces, particularly the British, participated and fought valiantly. But all the talk of coalitions and multinational forces shouldn't be allowed to obscure the reality that the non-Iraqi burdens, and the casualties, are overwhelmingly and increasingly American. The British drawdown should be yet another signal to Bush that escalation is a step in the wrong direction.
Missing protections.
Amid the bitter congressional debate over Bush's surge of forces into Baghdad, the one thing everyone says they agree on is support for U.S. troops.
The barest minimum expression of that support, no matter how one feels about the war, ought to be ensuring that American forces aren't sent into battle without equipment they need to protect themselves and complete their mission.
Yet nearly four years after the war began, U.S. troops still don't have complete body armor or enough properly armored vehicles to shield them from deadly roadside bombs, according to a report last month by the Defense Department's inspector general.
The shortages are costing lives. A Defense Department study more than a year ago concluded that 80% of the fatal injuries to Marines might have been prevented by additional armor coverage.
What's especially troubling about the latest report is that it's familiar. As the war lasted longer and turned more deadly than its architects envisioned, the supply system has struggled to keep up with insurgent tactics.
Soldiers complained that their trucks were unsafe. Body armor was so scarce that families bought it themselves in the United States and shipped it to loved ones in the field. Army and Marine Corps generals promised Congress a year ago that they'd improve the body armor for all troops.
The Defense Department dismisses criticism in the latest report as "anecdote-based" and "dated." The inspector general says the Pentagon has been "non-responsive" to the finding that the Army lacks a standard process to determine equipment requirements.
Troops in Iraq don't need fingerpointing or lamentations about the procurement process. They need the best protective equipment, which it's long past time for the Pentagon to deliver.
Appalling conditions.
Thanks to advances in armor and medical science, many soldiers who would have died in previous wars are surviving their wounds in Iraq. Often, though, the cost is severe physical or mental disabilities.
For every U.S. service member killed in Iraq, another seven are wounded. Many of the most grievously injured end up at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, considered the crown jewel of military medical care. Until now.
In a series of articles that began Sunday, The Washington Post exposed scandalous inadequacies in the care of nearly 700 outpatients living at a former hotel that's part of the Walter Reed complex but generally out of view of visiting dignitaries.
The heartbreaking litany ran from rodent-infested or mold-encrusted living facilities to a Kafkaesque bureaucracy where forms get lost and soldiers with debilitating physical and mental conditions too often are left to fend for themselves.
The Army is scrambling to address the situation, yet another sad example of how the toll from the Iraq war has overwhelmed military facilities.
Military recruiters use slick pitches and generous financial incentives to attract recruits. They follow up with letters, phone calls and e-mails.
If the "we support our troops" pledges are to have any meaning, that same sort of aggressive follow-up needs to be applied to the physical and psychological needs of soldiers who end up at places like Walter Reed. And it shouldn't take a newspaper expose to make it happen.
Ellie
Crumbling coalition.
Army Gen. David Petraeus just became the top U.S. commander in Iraq, but officially he's commander, Multi-National Force-Iraq. Pentagon press releases repeatedly refer to "coalition forces" and "MNF-Iraq."
This is meant to convey that it's not just the United States fighting in Iraq, but a group of allies, side by side in what President Bush calls the central front in the war on terror. That's always been something of a fiction, and it's becoming even more of one.
The 141,000 U.S. troops in Iraq represent more than 90% of the foreign forces there. Of the more than 14,000 others, about half are British and the others are dispersed among some two dozen nations.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been Bush's most steadfast ally in Iraq, is expected to announce today plans to withdraw 1,500 British troops within weeks and another 1,500 by the end of the year.
In the last three years, amid the deteriorating security situation, 17 nations, including Spain, Italy and New Zealand, have pulled their troops out Iraq. Only the United States is surging more soldiers.
Since 2003, when Bush rushed to invade Iraq with a coalition of the willing and coerced, this has been a U.S.-led war. Yes, other foreign forces, particularly the British, participated and fought valiantly. But all the talk of coalitions and multinational forces shouldn't be allowed to obscure the reality that the non-Iraqi burdens, and the casualties, are overwhelmingly and increasingly American. The British drawdown should be yet another signal to Bush that escalation is a step in the wrong direction.
Missing protections.
Amid the bitter congressional debate over Bush's surge of forces into Baghdad, the one thing everyone says they agree on is support for U.S. troops.
The barest minimum expression of that support, no matter how one feels about the war, ought to be ensuring that American forces aren't sent into battle without equipment they need to protect themselves and complete their mission.
Yet nearly four years after the war began, U.S. troops still don't have complete body armor or enough properly armored vehicles to shield them from deadly roadside bombs, according to a report last month by the Defense Department's inspector general.
The shortages are costing lives. A Defense Department study more than a year ago concluded that 80% of the fatal injuries to Marines might have been prevented by additional armor coverage.
What's especially troubling about the latest report is that it's familiar. As the war lasted longer and turned more deadly than its architects envisioned, the supply system has struggled to keep up with insurgent tactics.
Soldiers complained that their trucks were unsafe. Body armor was so scarce that families bought it themselves in the United States and shipped it to loved ones in the field. Army and Marine Corps generals promised Congress a year ago that they'd improve the body armor for all troops.
The Defense Department dismisses criticism in the latest report as "anecdote-based" and "dated." The inspector general says the Pentagon has been "non-responsive" to the finding that the Army lacks a standard process to determine equipment requirements.
Troops in Iraq don't need fingerpointing or lamentations about the procurement process. They need the best protective equipment, which it's long past time for the Pentagon to deliver.
Appalling conditions.
Thanks to advances in armor and medical science, many soldiers who would have died in previous wars are surviving their wounds in Iraq. Often, though, the cost is severe physical or mental disabilities.
For every U.S. service member killed in Iraq, another seven are wounded. Many of the most grievously injured end up at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, considered the crown jewel of military medical care. Until now.
In a series of articles that began Sunday, The Washington Post exposed scandalous inadequacies in the care of nearly 700 outpatients living at a former hotel that's part of the Walter Reed complex but generally out of view of visiting dignitaries.
The heartbreaking litany ran from rodent-infested or mold-encrusted living facilities to a Kafkaesque bureaucracy where forms get lost and soldiers with debilitating physical and mental conditions too often are left to fend for themselves.
The Army is scrambling to address the situation, yet another sad example of how the toll from the Iraq war has overwhelmed military facilities.
Military recruiters use slick pitches and generous financial incentives to attract recruits. They follow up with letters, phone calls and e-mails.
If the "we support our troops" pledges are to have any meaning, that same sort of aggressive follow-up needs to be applied to the physical and psychological needs of soldiers who end up at places like Walter Reed. And it shouldn't take a newspaper expose to make it happen.
Ellie