How We Surge....

Our Leaders really, really love and support the troops.

So how do we surge?

Screw the troops who've already served, of course:

DAVID CLOUD, New York Times: Well, there are units in four states -- Arkansas, Oklahoma, Ohio and Indiana -- combat brigades in all four of the states, which are being told they may have to go back to Iraq early next year. Many of them have already been to Iraq one or Afghanistan one or even two times.

RAY SUAREZ: Now, when would they have expected to go back? When, under the normal rotation, would they have gone back otherwise?

DAVID CLOUD: One of the units wasn't scheduled to go back until 2010. The other three were supposed to go back in 2009. So this is a significant shortening of the time that they're going to have at home between deployments.

Timetables for deployments

RAY SUAREZ: Now, what was the most recent policy of the Bush administration regarding how long it would be between overseas deployments for units like the ones that are being told to be ready to go back?

DAVID CLOUD: The policy for several years, since the Iraq invasion, has been that, for Guard and Reserve units, they were supposed to be deployed for 24 months every five years, no more than 24 months every five years. That was scraped in January when the president announced his surge plan, his plan to send more reinforcements to Iraq.

They acknowledged at the time that essentially the deployments had gone on so long in Iraq and Afghanistan that there was no way they could live up to those promises anymore. And they've come up with a new set of rules, which essentially say, "We will send you for one year, a maximum of one year, every five years." But in doing so, they've wiped away the previous service so that any unit is now eligible to go back for another year to Iraq or Afghanistan.

RAY SUAREZ: So for these time totals, we're starting from scratch, we're starting from square one?

DAVID CLOUD: That's correct.

RAY SUAREZ: Are Guard units already in Iraq also being extended, in addition to ones back home being sent back sooner?

DAVID CLOUD: As part of the increase in troops in Iraq, the 21,500 that the White House announced in January, they did extend one unit, a Minnesota National Guard brigade, for 90 days.

***

RAY SUAREZ: Do the commanding officers -- and these are state functions -- do the commanding officers in these various states say that they have the personnel they need, the equipment they need to redeploy as quickly as they're being asked to?
DAVID CLOUD: Well, I've talked to a number of them in the past few days, and a number of these units that could go next year, and many of them say they do not, at the moment, have the equipment and even the training to carry out the mission.

They're in discussions with the Army about getting the equipment. Many of them say they're short of rifles, they're short of mortars, they're short of a lot of things, equipment, up-armored Humvees, which are vital in Iraq, because of the IED threat. And the Army has committed to getting them the equipment they need.

But under the quick timetable that they're looking at, it's going to be a difficult job to get them all the equipment.

RAY SUAREZ: Well, help me understand the relationship between these units being asked to go back next year and the year after with the president's intention to increase the number of troops deployed in Iraq. We were told that it would peak by the end of this year and that it would be temporary. Does this mean that that surge could go on a lot longer?

DAVID CLOUD: There's no definitive answer to that yet. Commanders have said the surge will go on, and they'll look at conditions at the end of the summer and decide whether the 21,500 troop increase could come down at that time.

So, in effect, what the Pentagon is doing is preparing for the possibility that they will need this elevated number of troops next year by alerting these Guard units now that they might have to go.

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RAY SUAREZ: Can they be compelled to stay in service like regular forces can?

DAVID CLOUD: They can. This concept of stop-loss, which the Pentagon can impose on Guard members to stop them from getting out, if they are scheduled to -- if they are mobilized. Again, it's a technical thing, but there are ways that the Pentagon can prevent members from getting out.

Link.