← Autodidact Archive · Original Dissent · Faust
Thread ID: 19757 | Posts: 8 | Started: 2005-08-21
2005-08-21 04:46 | User Profile
4 More Years... in Iraq!
Army Planning for 4 More Years in Iraq
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago
WASHINGTON - The Army is planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers in Iraq ââ¬â well over 100,000 ââ¬â for four more years, the Army's top general said Saturday. ADVERTISEMENT
In an Associated Press interview, Gen. Peter Schoomaker said the Army is prepared for the "worst case" in terms of the required level of troops in Iraq. He said the number could be adjusted lower if called for by slowing the force rotation or by shortening tours for soldiers.
Schoomaker said commanders in Iraq and others who are in the chain of command will decide how many troops will be needed next year and beyond. His responsibility is to provide them, trained and equipped.
About 138,000 U.S. troops, including about 25,000 Marines, are now in Iraq.
"We are now into '07-'09 in our planning," Schoomaker said, having completed work on the set of combat and support units that will be rotated into Iraq over the coming year for 12-month tours of duty.
Schoomaker's comments come amid indications from Bush administration officials and commanders in Iraq that the size of the U.S. force may be scaled back next year if certain conditions are achieved.
Among those conditions: an Iraqi constitution must be drafted in coming days; it must be approved in a national referendum; and elections must be held for a new government under that charter.
Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyond President Bush's term in office, which ends in January 2009.
Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted by the Military Order of the World Wars, a veterans' organization.
"We're staying 18 months to two years ahead of ourselves" in planning which active-duty and National Guard and Reserve units will be provided to meet the commanders' needs, Schoomaker said in the interview.
The main active-duty combat units that are scheduled to go to Iraq in the coming year are the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. Both did one-year tours earlier in the war.
The Army has changed the way it arranges troop rotations.
Instead of sending a full complement of replacement forces each 12-month cycle, it is stretching out the rotation over two years.
The current rotation, for 2005-07, will overlap with the 2006-08 replacements. Beyond that, the Army is piecing together the plan for the 2007-09 switch, Schoomaker said.
With the recent deployments of National Guard brigades from Georgia and Pennsylvania, the National Guard has seven combat brigades in Iraq ââ¬â the most of the entire war ââ¬â plus thousands of support troops.
Along with the Army Reserve and Marine Reserve, they account for about 40 percent of the total U.S. forces in Iraq. Schoomaker said that will be scaled back next year to about 25 percent as newly expanded active-duty divisions such as the 101st Airborne enter the rotation.
August has been the deadliest month of the war for the National Guard and Reserve, with at least 42 fatalities thus far. Schoomaker disputed the suggestion by some that the Guard and Reserve units are not fully prepared for the hostile environment of Iraq.
"I'm very confident that there is no difference in the preparation" of active-duty soldiers and the reservists, who normally train one weekend a month and two weeks each summer, unless they are mobilized. Once called to active duty, they go through the same training as active-duty units.
In internal surveys, some in the reserve forces have indicated to Army leaders that they think they are spending too much time in pre-deployment training, not too little, Schoomaker said.
"Consistently, what we've been (hearing) is, `We're better than you think we are, and we could do this faster,'" he said. "I can promise you that we're not taking any risk in terms of what we're doing to prepare people."
On the Net:
Schoomaker's official biography at [url]http://www.army.mil/leaders/csa/bio.htm[/url]
2005-08-21 12:26 | User Profile
"Four more years" is a public-relations flack's way to say "ten to fifteen more years".
2005-08-21 13:22 | User Profile
[QUOTE=il ragno]"Four more years" is a public-relations flack's way to say "ten to fifteen more years".[/QUOTE]Exactly.
I never get tired of posting the following. Please share with a friend:
DEMOCRATIZING ISLAM
Paul Eidelberg
Policy Paper No. 141, 2002
Executive Summary
ââ¬ÅDemocratizing Islamââ¬Â shows that ââ¬ÅIslamic fundamentalismââ¬Â or ââ¬ÅIslamismââ¬Â is in fact authentic Islam ââ¬â the Islam of Muhammad. **To democratize Islam it will be necessary for the United States to conquer Iraq and other Islamic regimes and maintain an occupation force for [u]two or three decades[/u], as was done in post-war Japan and Germany.**
A generation of Muslim children will have to be re-educated. Anti-Jewish and anti-Christian verses in the Qur'an should be neutralized by contrary verses and commentaries. The principle of Jihad must be eliminated from the four schools of Islamic law. Islamic regimes must abide by the Seven Noahide Laws of Universal Morality.
Non-Arab states should follow the example of Turkey and remove Arabic from public documents and public education and establish their native language as the only official language of the state. This will diminish pan-Arab as well as pan-Islamic sentiments.
Source: [url]http://www.acpr.org.il/publications/policy-papers/pp141-xs.html[/url]
In other words, Islamic religious unity is bad for the Jews, particularly those in Israel. Thus, it's necessary that the goyim be pressed into service to donate money and blood so that the Jew may be strengthened and glorified.
Unless the brainwashed American cattle wake up and take back their government, nothing will change. But they're not going to wake up. They're too blinded by pseudo-patriotic zeal and the fear of being labeled "liberal" by Hannity, Coulter, Horowitz, Limbaugh, and all the rest of the Judeocons. :furious:
2005-08-21 13:35 | User Profile
4, 5, 6, 7 More Years in Iraq for USA?
Has anyone asked the insurgents or even regular Iraqis what they think about all this??
2005-08-21 13:44 | User Profile
[COLOR=Purple][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "Unless the brainwashed American cattle wake up and take back their government, nothing will change. But they're not going to wake up."[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
You're being too pessimistic. As a whole, the continuing Iraqi war is making the position of Jews and Israel more and more precarious. They may still be blustering on the deck of Titanic, but the bottom is leaking.
As a side note, you're once again being smugly elitistic. I do not have a very high opinion on the current condition of Finnish masses, but it wouldn't come to my mind to call them as "brainwashed cattle."
Petr
2005-08-21 14:11 | User Profile
[QUOTE=Petr][COLOR=Purple][FONT=Arial][I][B] - "Unless the brainwashed American cattle wake up and take back their government, nothing will change. But they're not going to wake up."[/B][/I][/FONT][/COLOR]
You're being too pessimistic. As a whole, the continuing Iraqi war is making the position of Jews and Israel more and more precarious. They may still be blustering on the deck of Titanic, but the bottom is leaking. I hope you're right, but I don't have high hopes that the Jews will be exposed. I think that if the neocons continue to overplay their hand, most likely the Democrats will just start taking over again.
As a side note, you're once again being smugly elitistic. I do not have a very high opinion on the current condition of Finnish masses, but it wouldn't come to my mind to call them as "brainwashed cattle." I know little about Finland (and most of what I've heard is very good), so I can't comment on your situation there. But most Americans ARE brainwashed cattle. They are putty in politicians' hands.
I don't deny the charge of elitism, as I do happen to think that most people are simpleminded fools. The reason I come to OD, LibertyForum, and other boards is because I seek out people who stand out from the masses of asses by thinking for themselves.
OTOH, I'm anything but smug. I get absolutely no satisfaction at all from thinking about how my country is being led to ruin because the majority of people here are such suckers. It saddens, disgusts, and angers me all at once.
Anyway, this thread's not about me, it's about Iraq. And like I said, I think Americans are going to be stationed there for a long, long time. The Jews have deemed it necessary. They control the government and the media, so who's going to stop them? You don't seriously expect a majority of Americans to become Jew-aware any time soon, do you? I just don't see it happening.
2005-08-22 03:30 | User Profile
Contingency plan
Politically inane. Guarantees a Democratic win in 2008.
I am willing to bet this was leaked/released to test the waters of the tolerance of the general electorate for a long term occupation. 2006 election is not far away . . .
The folks who happen to live in Iraq get a vote. Their Constitutional convention is under a deadline, an unfair one in my opinion. They are working through an incredibly difficult process. When they reach a loggerhead, lo and behold someone in Washington plays the patronizing
"If you all can't sort yourselves out, we'll just have to play in your sandbox a little longer"
card.
Hello. This is standard politics in action.
Watch for more as things develop. For my taste, this is the typically heavey handed and inelegant rhetoric from Washington that has been waging a losing Information Campaign since about June 2002. It is almost as though the folks up there are deliberately committing political suicide.
Why would they do that? What is supposed to arise, Phoenix like, from the grave of their current self inflicted homicide?
AE
[QUOTE=Faust]4 More Years... in Iraq!
Army Planning for 4 More Years in Iraq
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer 1 hour, 1 minute ago
On the Net:
Schoomaker's official biography at [url="http://www.army.mil/leaders/csa/bio.htm"]http://www.army.mil/leaders/csa/bio.htm[/url][/QUOTE]
2005-08-22 08:29 | User Profile
[font=Times New Roman][size=3]GOODBYE, REPUBLICANS - the 2006 and 2008 elections are just around the corner![/size][/font]