Quote of the Week
"The world expects something more of an American president than to prance around on a flight deck dressed up like [a] pilot. He's expected to be a leader. That's my fundamental issue with it. It doesn't reflect the gravitas of the office. Furthermore, it's a little phony."Gen. Wesley K. Clark,
Newsweek
July 14, 2003
July 07, 2003
Troop morale in Iraq hits 'rock bottom'
Soldiers stress is a key concern as the Army ponders whether to send more forces.
By Ann Scott Tyson
Special to The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON - US troops facing extended deployments amid the danger, heat, and uncertainty of an Iraq occupation are suffering from low morale that has in some cases hit "rock bottom."
Even as President Bush speaks of a "massive and long-term" undertaking in rebuilding Iraq, that effort, as well as the high tempo of US military operations around the globe, is taking its toll on individual troops.
Some frustrated troops stationed in Iraq are writing letters to representatives in Congress to request their units be repatriated. "Most soldiers would empty their bank accounts just for a plane ticket home," said one recent Congressional letter written by an Army soldier now based in Iraq. The soldier requested anonymity.
In some units, there has been an increase in letters from the Red Cross stating soldiers are needed at home, as well as daily instances of female troops being sent home due to pregnancy.
"Make no mistake, the level of morale for most soldiers that I've seen has hit rock bottom," said another soldier, an officer from the Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.
Such open grumbling among troops comes as US commanders reevaluate the size and composition of the US-led coalition force needed to occupy Iraq. US Central Command, which is leading the occupation, is expected by mid-July to send a proposal to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on how many and what kind of troops are required, as well as on the rotation of forces there.
For soldiers, a life on the road
The rethink about troop levels comes as senior military leaders voice concern that multiple deployments around the world are already taxing the endurance of US forces, the Army in particular. Some 370,000 soldiers are now deployed overseas from an Army active-duty, guard, and reserve force of just over 1 million people, according to Army figures.
Experts warn that long, frequent deployments could lead to a rash of departures from the military. "Hordes of active-duty troops and reservists may soon leave the service rather than subject themselves to a life continually on the road," writes Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the Brookings Institution here.
A major Army study is now under way to examine the impact of this high pace of operations on the mental health of soldiers and families. "The cumulative effect of these work hours and deployment and training are big issues, and soldiers are concerned about it," says Col. Charles Hoge, who is leading the survey of 5,000 to 10,000 soldiers for the Walter Reed Institute of Army Research.
Concern over stressed troops is not new. In the late 1990s, a shrinking of military manpower combined with a rise in overseas missions prompted Congress to call for sharp pay increases for troops deployed over a certain number of days.
"But then came September 11 and the operational tempo went off the charts" and the Congressional plan was suspended, according to Ed Bruner, an expert on ground forces at the Congressional Research Service here.
Adding manpower to the region
Despite Pentagon statements before the war that the goal of US forces was to "liberate, not occupy" Iraq, Secretary Rumsfeld warned last week that the war against terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere "will not be over any time soon."
Currently, there are some 230,000 US troops serving in and around Iraq, including nearly 150,000 US troops inside Iraq and 12,000 from Britain and other countries. According to the Pentagon, the number of foreign troops is expected to rise to 20,000 by September. Fresh foreign troops began flowing into Iraq this month, part of two multinational forces led by Poland and Britain. A third multinational force is also under consideration.
A crucial factor in determining troop levels are the daily attacks that have killed more than 30 US and British servicemen in Iraq since Mr. Bush declared on May 1 that major combat operations had ended.
The unexpected degree of resistance led the Pentagon to increase US ground troops in Iraq to mount a series of ongoing raids aimed at confiscating weapons and capturing opposition forces.
A tour of duty with no end in sight
As new US troops flowed into Iraq, others already in the region for several months, such as the 20,000-strong 3rd Infantry Division were retained in Iraq.
"Faced with continued resistance, Department of Defense now plans to keep a larger force in Iraq than anticipated for a period of time," Maj. Gen. Buford Blount, commander of the 3rd Infantry Division, explained in a statement to families a month ago. "I appreciate the turmoil and stress that a continued deployment has caused," he added.
The open-ended deployments in Iraq are lowering morale among some ground troops, who say constantly shifting time tables are reducing confidence in their leadership. "The way we have been treated and the continuous lies told to our families back home has devastated us all," a soldier in Iraq wrote in a letter to Congress.
Security threats, heat, harsh living conditions, and, for some soldiers, waiting and boredom have gradually eroded spirits. An estimated 9,000 troops from the 3rd Infantry Division - most deployed for at least six months and some for more than a year - have been waiting for several weeks, without a mission, to return to the United States, officers say.
In one Army unit, an officer described the mentality of troops. "They vent to anyone who will listen. They write letters, they cry, they yell. Many of them walk around looking visibly tired and depressed.... We feel like pawns in a game that we have no voice [in]."
Scandal Of 'Lost' Iraqi POWS -
Only 2,000 Are Accounted For
Exclusive By Gary Jones
The Mirror - UK
7-6-3
The Red Cross yesterday accused Tony Blair and George Bush of breaching the Geneva Convention over the shabby treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war.
The humanitarian organisation said the true number of PoWs and their whereabouts was unknown, family visits have been denied and there was no system in place to monitor arrests or pass on details to the Red Cross.
A high-ranking official of the International Committee of the Red Cross said: "It is an obligation of the occupying power to notify us of any arrests but that's not happening. We are not receiving anything like full information on prisoners of war.
"There is no proper notification. No organisation. There is not the will to resolve this issue.
"Talks are now taking place at the highest level and if we don't make progress then we will be merciless in fighting our corner."
The shocking series of complaints made by the ICRC include:
ONLY 2,000 prisoners have so far been seen with many more unaccounted for.
RELATIVES are not allowed to visit them even if they are lucky enough to track them down.
SO slipshod has been the taking down of Arabic names of PoWs that they are meaningless, making it impossible for the Red Cross to track down their families
NO notification of arrests or where prisoners are held and no urgency in passing on information.
Labour MP and leading war critic Tam Dalyell called on the Prime Minister to urgently resolve the Red Cross grievances. He said: "He's got to sort this out - or release the PoWs. Not monitoring prisoners properly will cause huge resentment, especially if those being held are innocent.
"Adding to the perceived injustices of the Iraqi people will only create more bitterness and lead to more attacks on our forces.
"It is a catastrophic state of affairs."
The US has sidestepped some of its responsibilities under the 50-year-old Geneva Convention because President Bush stopped short of declaring the war over.
Under the Convention, once war is declared over the victorious army must release prisoners of war and halt operations targeting specific leaders. Human rights group Amnesty International has called on the US and British forces to give Iraqis detained since the beginning of the occupation the right to meet families and lawyers.
They are also calling for a judicial review of their detention.
UK Director Lesley Warner said: "The conditions of detention Iraqis are held under at the Camp Cropper Centre at Baghdad International Airport - now a US base - and at Abu Ghraib Prison may amount to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, banned by international law." Detainees held in Baghdad have invariably reported that they suffered cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment immediately after arrest.
They report being tightly bound with plastic handcuffs and sometimes denied water and access to a toilet in the first night of arrest.
Amnesty delegates saw numerous ex-detainees with wrists still scarred by the cuffs a month later. The Red Cross has a policy of not speaking publicly on the condition of prisoners.
The official who spoke to the Daily Mirror from Geneva said: "I shouldn't really be talking to you but the truth is we don't have a full picture of all the arrests and are not receiving all the information we need."
The Ministry of Defence said yesterday it worked closely with the Red Cross.
A spokesman said: "If the ICRC is raising this issue then answers will be given to the queries they have raised. We take our obligations under the Geneva Convention very seriously."
Say It: This Is a Quagmire
Tom Hayden, AlterNet
July 7, 2003
On the day U.S. soldiers occupied Baghdad, draped the American flag over Saddam Hussein's statue and pulled it down, 103 GIs had died in the Iraq war. The number killed since that supposedly triumphal moment on April 9 may double in this coming week, in a war that an American general now admits is ongoing.
The total number of American soldiers killed since the toppling of Saddam's statue is 93 by July 4, including the nine Americans killed in the bombing in Saudi Arabia. That makes a total of 196 dead so far, not including the six British soldiers killed last month.
The media is being forced to recognize this reality, but continues to minimize the numbers. Using the definition "killed in hostile encounters" and May 1 as the date when President Bush declared the cessation of hostilities, the reported death toll is lowered to "about 24" Americans, according to the New York Times front-page spin based on figures from Paul Bremer III. (NYT, July 4). The official non-fatal casualty number acknowledged since May 1 is 177 Americans. Most of the dead and wounded are grunts, "low-ranking ground troops who are performing mundane activities like buying a video, going out on patrol, or guarding a trash pit."
The manipulation of the American body count, like the earlier manipulation of the costs of war and occupation, only feeds the growing anger among military personnel and their families, as cited in the New York Times. During the Vietnam war, troop demoralization rose as Americans continued to die while President Nixon promised that the war was winding down. A similar phenomenon appears to be happening already in the 115-degree temperatures of occupied Iraq. No one wants to sacrifice his life for President Bush after he's held an aircraft-carrier press conference declaring "mission accomplished." No family wants the death of a son or daughter minimized to airbrush the President's victory image.
Contrary to the expectations promoted by the Administration and media, Iraq is now a quagmire, not a cakewalk. Remember Jay Garner? Gone. Remember the cheering Iraqis with flowers? Never appeared. Remember the nukes and weapons of mass destruction? We're bribing and threatening informants. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week that "intelligence doesn't necessarily mean something is true. I mean, that's not what intelligence is."
No one in the media, military or political establishment can use the "Q-word" apparently, for fear of dredging up the images of Vietnam that they have been trying to erase for the past generation.
Quagmire is not a metaphor for Vietnam, but has a specific meaning. It is a strategic defeat. The occupier can't declare victory and can't withdraw. It's too early to be certain, but quagmire is becoming an accurate description of the American crisis:
The occupation forces are stretched thin, forced into non-military roles such as policing and infrastructure repair, which makes them vulnerable to small-scale ambushes. A single suicide bomber could wreak havoc;
the occupation forces cannot withdraw, for that would mean humiliation and failure;
nor can the occupation forces expand significantly, not only for political reasons, but because they are bogged down in Afghanistan, Bosnia and many smaller destination spots in the U.S. Empire;
the original plan for installing a new regime has stalled for reasons never adequately explained. Gen. Garner was forced out, and the Pentagon's favorite government-in-exile led by Ahmed Chalabi is marginalized and quarreling;
Like Gulliver among the Lilliputians, the imperial mindset is dangerously incapable of understanding its opposition. The Iraqis must be fighting not because they oppose the occupation but because Saddam Hussein is secretly manipulating them from hiding.
The most dangerous characteristic of quagmires is that there is no way out for the occupiers except through acknowledging the mistake. The longer the denial, the worse the quagmire.
Opposition parties like the Democrats become sunk in quagmire as well. Some of them can declare "I told you so," but they fear the consequences of an American military withdrawal.
Often, it takes the military, starting with the soldiers on the ground, to bring the nature of the quagmire to public attention. That may be beginning to happen. Last week, military officials needed military escorts to escape "seething spouses" at a military base in Georgia. (NYT, July 4)
Ending a quagmire eventually requires a strong peace movement and public frustration. The American people have little patience with quagmires, at least those with televised casualties. That is why the percentage of Americans who think the war is going badly has shot up from 13 percent to 42 percent since Bush declared it over. In a quagmire, when body counts, costs and credibility are sufficiently worrisome, politicians step forward with plans to save the larger system by strategic retreat.
This trapped imperial mindset is always on display in Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, edited by aristocratic neo-conservatives like William Kristol, as in the glory days after President Bush's media adventure aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. "Victory!" proclaimed the neo-cons, for "The Restoration of American Awe and the Opening of the Arab Mind." (May 12, 2003). Sounding unconsciously like the Crusades, the magazine announced proudly that we had taken away Saddam's "hayba," his aura of invincible authority.
The danger to America and the world is that the Bush Administration believes this analysis, which is nothing more than a projection of our own insecurities onto Saddam as "the Other." It is the Bush Administration, after all, that insists on projecting an American hayba, or image of invincibility, as its new National Security Strategy.
Who knows, the Americans may overpower the remaining Iraqi resistance, get the electricity and water running in due time, set up some Fort Apache outposts, manage to make the media withdraw, and create another... Afghanistan. But for now, it's time to break through the denial of the media and the politicians before more Americans die while guarding Baghdad trash pits. It's time to call it what it is, a deepening quagmire.
Tom Hayden is a veteran progressive activist and politician. He has written nine books, including the just published "Irish on the Inside."
