Support Our Troops 2

It is getting harder and harder for Republicans to claim they “Support Our Troops” as every day passes and another headline exposes the lie behind the statement. For the past week Walter Reed’s treatment of wounded US soldiers has shocked the public and Congress. The Administration strived for years to keep word of Iraqi and Afghanistan wounds and death outside public awareness. But a situation known to insiders and complained about to no avail was reported in the Washington Post and now everyone is trying to resolve the situation.

The new Secretary of Defense, who doesn’t bear responsibility for the events can’t even get it right. Yesterday he fired the head of Walter Reed, who has been in the job for less than a year, has been trying to correct the situation and has the support of his staff, while promoting the General who headed Walter Reed from 2002 through 2004, during which time the lack of treatment began, and whose reaction to the news reports was to blast the messenger rather than admit the problem existed.

Today the Post reported on a preliminary analysis prepared by a congressional commission studying the state of US military reserve forces. It demonstrates once again how the Bush decision to invade Iraq completely underestimated the costs and implications of doing so. Bush and Rumsfeld’s inability to understand what they were undertaking, their lack of planning, and their adherence to belief’s untested by anyone other than their small group of advisors led them into the morass we face today. Their insistence on thinking they could succeed in Iraq with a fraction of the troops they were told they needed results in the condition described below:

Nearly 90 percent of Army National Guard units in the United States are rated "not ready" -- largely as a result of shortfalls in billions of dollars' worth of equipment -- jeopardizing their capability to respond to crises at home and abroad
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The report found that heavy deployments of the National Guard and reserves since 2001 for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and for other anti-terrorism missions have deepened shortages, forced the cobbling together of units and hurt recruiting.

"We can't sustain the [National Guard and reserves] on the course we're on," said Arnold L. Punaro, chairman of the 13-member Commission on the National Guard and Reserves, established by Congress in 2005.

"The Department of Defense is not adequately equipping the National Guard for its domestic missions," the commission's report found. It faulted the Pentagon for a lack of budgeting for "civil support" in domestic emergencies, criticizing the "flawed assumption" that as long as the military is prepared to fight a major war, it is ready to respond to a disaster or emergency at home.

The equipment shortage extends to Gulf Coast states such as Louisiana and Mississippi -- devastated in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina -- where Guard units have only a fraction of what they would need to respond to another large-scale disaster.

Army National Guard units in the United States have on average about half of their authorized stock of dual-use equipment, needed both for fighting wars and for domestic missions, according to a recent Government Accountability Office report. The National Guard estimates that it would require $38 billion for equipment to restore domestic Army and Air National Guard units to full readiness. The Army has budgeted $21 billion to augment Guard equipment through 2011.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the use of U.S. military reservists has risen from about 12.7 million days of service in 2001 to an estimated 63 million days in 2006. The current increase of U.S. troops in Iraq is expected to require the call-up of as many as four National Guard combat brigades beginning early next year.

But while the 830,000-strong selected reserves make up more than a third of the total military, they receive only 3 percent of equipment funding and 8 percent of the Defense Department budget, the report said.

National Guard units deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have been required to leave large quantities of gear in the combat zone. Partly as a result, 88 percent of Guard units in the United States are now so poorly equipped that they are rated "not ready," according to Guard data and the report, which cited the National Guard Bureau chief, Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum. Forty-five percent of the Air National Guard is also "not ready," according to Guard data.

The report also said prospects for Guard recruiting and retention remain "highly problematic," despite successes last year. Fewer former active-duty military personnel have joined the reserves over the past 10 years -- they made up 38 percent of the Army National Guard recruits last year, compared with 61 percent in 1997. Polling data for youths and their parents also show that favorable views of service in the Guard and reserves have declined since November 2001, the report said.