Details here; an excerpt:
Several recent reports have documented the depth of the impending crisis, including a detailed analysis of troop strengths by Ann Tyson in the Washington Post. So far, over one million U.S. military personnel have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, with some 341,000 already doing the dreaded double-deployments (and many now entering triple-deployment territory). The military has moved troops into Iraq from all over the world, including previously untouchable Cold War detachments in Korea, Germany, and Alaska, and it's still "scrambling" to keep 17 battalions regularly in Iraq, many severely undermanned. These shortages have led to an increasing dependence on expensive private security contractors, who themselves add to the Pentagon's recruitment problems by hiring away otherwise re-upable military personnel for four times the wages paid in the Army.
To make matters worse, the Defense Department (to protect against a crisis elsewhere) has decided, with Congressional authorization, to increase the overall size of active-duty forces by 30,000, which can only amplify the retention/recruitment crunch.
Last fall the military embarked on a Herculean set of efforts to meet these daunting demands. It manufactured a 40% increase in the pool of candidates available for the Guard and Reserve by relaxing entry standards and raising the enlistment age to 40 years. It added thousands of new recruiters (1400 for the National Guard alone) and equipped them with an array of new inducements, including signing bonuses as high as $20,000 (for those with previous experience) and up to $70,000 in college credits for new enlistees. Re-enlistment bonuses, depending on specialty, can now reach $100,000. The Defense Department also launched a new $180 million recruitment campaign that includes "sponsorship of a rodeo cowboy, ads on ESPN, and a 24 hour Web site that allows users to chat with recruiters…24 hours a day." In a special effort to help the most stressed service, the military is offering six million dollars of recruitment money in exchange for the right to name the home of the new Washington Nationals baseball team National Guard Stadium.
The most dramatic of the new measures were aimed at inducing (or coercing) personnel to remain in the military beyond their enlistment contracts. Tom Reeves, author of The End of the Draft and longtime observer of draft policy, reports that 40,000 soldiers have already been retained by using the notorious "stop-loss" system, which allows the Army unilaterally to keep soldiers for up to 18 months beyond the date their enlistment is scheduled to terminate....
Such military efforts were augmented by what may be the ultimate sign of military desperation: the call-up of 5,500 members of the "Individual Ready Reserves." As Reeves notes, these are "older men and women whose regular reserve duty has ended -- including grandmothers and grandfathers edging toward retirement…who have no idea they would be recalled to duty." It is hardly surprising that nearly one-third of these superannuated reserves have refused to report....
[E]ven [the Pentagon's] most far-reaching and draconian efforts seem to be failing. Re-enlistment levels in both the Army and the Guard have now slipped below quota, and Reuters reports that this shortfall can be expected to get dramatically worse once larger numbers of soldiers reach that 18-month stop-loss limit. New recruitment appears to be entering freefall, with the most drastic declines among African Americans, who traditionally make up 25% of the volunteer army. January and February recorded the first Marine recruitment shortfalls in a decade; while the army is running 6% below targets for the year. Hardest hit have been the Reserves, with a 10% decline, and the Army National Guard at 26%. These units are in full crisis, with the Guard already announcing it will not reach full strength in 2005, and Reserve Commander General James Helmly stating that "overuse" is making his units into "a broken force." Reeves reports that even the military academies have suffered 15% to 25% declines in applications for admission....
Major General Michael D. Rochelle, the man in charge of army recruiting, told New York Times reporter Damien Cave that the recruitment crisis constituted the "toughest challenge to the all-volunteer army" since its inception in 1973.
Optimistic reports that our local military allies will soon begin to replace American troops follow a familiar pattern of miraculous overstatement (first established in Vietnam decades ago), as reporter Timothy Phelps documented in a March 21 article in Newsday that reviewed the history of American attempts to build Iraqi military forces. In the spring of 2004, official (and unofficial) Bush administration reports claimed the existence of 206,000 fully trained Iraqi troops. To the surprise of those who had accepted these claims, none of them fought successfully in the major battles that April (in Falluja, Najaf, or Sadr City). Most deserted beforehand, refused to fight, or fled under fire. A measurable minority, however, did fight ferociously -- for the resistance, using American-supplied weapons and equipment.
By fall 2004, though the U.S. was publicly claiming 135,000 "combat ready" Iraqi troops, one military official told New York Times reporter John Burns that as few as 1,500 Iraqi troops were actually fully trained....
Then came Rear Admiral William Sullivan's report to Congress in Spring 2005 which spoke of 145,000 "combat capable," "new" Iraqi armed forces. This claim was disputed -- by of all people -- Sabah Hadhum, a spokesman for the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior. He told the British Telegraph reporter Anton La Guardia, "We are paying about 135,000 (members of the security services) but that does not necessarily mean that 135,000 are actually working." As many as 50,000 of these may actually be what he termed "ghost soldiers"-- men not on duty but whose paychecks were being pocketed either by their officers or themselves....
According to Rear Admiral Sullivan, only a meager 14,000 troops were fully trained units in the "new Iraqi army," the first beneficiaries of what Burns of the Times called a "$5 billion American-financed effort." These troops had not, however, yet endured a major battle, and some of the American troops who worked with them evidently considered them worthless. As one trooper told London Times reporter Anthony Loyd, "I'm more scared of going out with these guys than clashing with the insurgents." According to Los Angeles Times reporter David Zuccino, even the 205th Iraqi Army Brigade, "considered the country's best unit by many U.S. trainers," had been infiltrated by insurgents....
Does Anyone Feel a Draft Coming In?
As the strain on the U.S. military continues to build, so does the pressure on policy. The only option that does not imply the sacrifice of many more American lives and magnitudes more Iraqi lives may be the withdrawal of American troops, but this option is "unthinkable" to the Bush administration -- and to its loyal Democratic opposition, not to speak of the bulk of the mainstream media. Only the American people (according to the most recent Marist Poll) -- and the rest of the world -- consider it "thinkable."
According to former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, avoiding this unthinkable option would require "500,000 troops, $500 billion and the resumption of the military draft." The need for a draft has been seconded by a wide range of military experts, including then-presidential candidate General Wesley Clark, who, in 2004, said the U.S. needed to start "thinking about the draft"; frequent Pentagon advisor Colonel David Hackworth, who called the draft a "no-brainer in '05 and '06"; and Charles Moskos, adviser to four presidents on military manpower, who declared that "we cannot achieve the number of troops we need in Iraq without a draft." Washington Monthly editor Paul Glastris and national security analyst Philip Carter articulated what might be the most comprehensive argument, calling for what a "21st Century draft," that would "create a cascading series of benefits," including turning the tide in Iraq....
For many Americans, the de-escalation of American imperial ambition is an attractive alternative to further war and a conscripted army. But for the Bush Administration, this alternative is just as unthinkable as the draft. They are stuck, therefore, between Iraq and a hard place.
The solution thus far has involved a contradictory and unstable set of pronouncements and policies. Rhetorically, the administration has continued to reaffirm its commitment to a no-draft military and its promise to pursue "preventive wars" of all sorts. At the same time, its officials have taken specific steps meant to give them added flexibility. As Reeves has documented, they have been quietly erecting the Selective Service System (SSS) needed for a future draft. In March, the SSS issued a report assuring the president that "it would be ready to implement a draft within 75 days" after Congressional authorization. Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the Selective Service System, told reporter Eric Rosenberg of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer that the SSS already has in place "a special system to register and draft health care personnel" and that they were undertaking active planning for "a special skills draft" aimed at computer programmers and language specialists. These programs would be ready for implementation any time the need arose.
News of this high level of preparedness has added to already widespread rumors of a renewed draft, and has fed speculation that the government was perhaps waiting for a dramatic event which would justify the draft without jeopardizing support for the war -- perhaps an internal terrorist attack, or an authentic (or U.S. precipitated) crisis elsewhere.
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