From today’s Washington Post, a mixed bag:
Commanders are heartened by a sharp reduction in the number of attacks on U.S. forces and say that an overhaul of intelligence operations has produced a series of successes that have weakened the anti-occupation insurgency. . . .
That’s the good news. Then, five paragraphs in, a buried SNAFU:
Military leaders believe that their operations in Iraq are entering a critical phase. One of the biggest troop rotations in U.S. history is getting underway, creating new vulnerabilities as 130,000 seasoned soldiers depart and 105,000 fresh ones come in to replace them.
Hold on a sec: We’re swapping 130,000 experienced soldiers (essentially, our entire force in Iraq) for 105,000 inexperienced soldiers, and we’re doing the switch-er-roo at the very moment that the situations with the Shia and the Kurds are becoming, shall we say, more nuanced? This is idiotic.
We can’t control whether the Shia will welcome us as liberators or reject us as occupiers.* We can’t control whether terrorists will seek to kill babies and old men in marketplaces. We can, however, plan for reasonable, intelligent troop rotations — troop rotations in which experienced troops are gradually replaced with inexperienced ones. That planning should have been done here. Apparently, it wasn’t.
UPDATE: It’s been suggested in comments that the Washington Post story wrongly implies an overnight, Freaky-Friday changeover. This isn’t the case at all — it’ll take five-six months. (I didn’t read the article that way, but I can see the implication.) My criticism is based on the fact that units are being replaced en toto at a pace that’s relatively quick, and at a time that troops with experience in Iraq are sorely needed.
Michael N. points to a good discussion of the swap over at Phil Carter’s blog. Phil probably disagrees, at least in part, with my criticism.
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*See Katherine‘s entry on the Shia “issue,” below.
I think Sistani agreed to some compromise, which is obviously good news. …didn’t get a chance to see what.
We can, however, plan for reasonable, intelligent troop rotations — troop rotations in which experienced troops are gradually replaced with inexperienced ones. That planning should have been done here. Apparently, it wasn’t.
Phil Carter has some extensive thoughts on this. Basically, it’ll be a “phasing-in” going all the way through May, and many of the troops coming in have actually been to Iraq before, as small units that were previously rotated out. He also points out that while there may be errors that come from lack of familiarity, there will also be fewer errors that come from fatigue and worn-out equipment.
There’s also extensive training that’s going on for units about to deploy (see this blog by A National Guardsman training up to deploy), and it’s being constantly updated with feedback from the troops currently on station. We’re also sending back a division of Marines, who have their own theories about getting along with the populace (go here for a link about people assembling supplies for the USMC to distribute).
It’s going to a dangerous time, but it has to be done. We always knew that the units deployed would have to be rotated out eventually, and we had to plan it well in advance, too, with no real ability to make anything other than minor adjustments to accommodate late-breaking events. There are certainly risks, and there will certainly be some negative consequences. Still, it has to be done, and there’s been a lot of thought put into doing it properly. The rotation will stretch out through May at least, and there is even some scheduled overlap for units to pass along acquired information and perform other tasks, like a possible increase in operational tempo. (Phil Carter has more on that subject, too, and links to several others discussing it.)
Indeed. Rotations are never done on a ‘okay, you 130,000 step back, you 105,000 step forward’ basis, which the article implies. This article is written so vaguely… ‘some’ this, ‘some’ that…
I admire the spin that contrasting ‘seasoned’ and ‘fresh’ makes, too. Very subtle.
Rotations are never done on a ‘okay, you 130,000 step back, you 105,000 step forward’ basis, which the article implies.
I don’t think that the article implies that the rotation is going to happen all at once, freaky-Friday style. There ain’t enough transports to handle that kind of redeployment. However, the fact of the matter is that we’re swapping out experienced units for inexperienced ones (and, yeah, “seasoned” is a good term) on at a nearly unprecedented pace. That is not emblamatic of good planning.
Phil makes some good points regarding reploying on a unit-by-unit basis v. redeployment soldier by soldier. (I’d note, however, that “unit cohesion” is not the end-all and be-all of an effective fighting force.)
Sheesh this whole thing is irritating. After 9-11 we should have immediately and dramatically bumped up all military salaries and through that drew more troops. I certainly can’t think of a better couple-a-hundred million spent at this point. (And while I’m living in my little dream world we could pay for it with the stupid farm subsidies with the added side benefit of making it easier to be an African farmer.)
The Belmont Club has an interesting take on this too. They note that Jane’s intelligence points towards us doing some fighting in the Bekaa valley.
If true, it seems it’d be a lot safer to do it at a time when so many troops are on their way to Iraq and so many troops (that could be kept there) still remain. Just in case…..
May I immodestly suggest the article linked to here as immensely relevant?
I was also going to make the same points that Michael N. made above, and I see Phil Carter made, so no point to repeat them. Return and arrival of troops actually trained for peacekeeping, unlike those trained for warfighting who are being rotated out. Also, they’ve been there a year. You simply can’t keep people stationed indefinitely and exzpect that to be more effective than putting in trained and rested people who have not been away from their families for a year.
Sebastian, you’re on a sound track, but to expand the Army by even a division would be a cost on the order of over a billion, not a few hundred million. Again, I recommend the article I link to above for implicit, though not entirely explicit, information on that point. The infrastructure costs, and need to plan to retain the people, supply them, train them, deploy them, rotate them, and so on, is vastly more than is obvious or direct.