Slate's Bizbox
war stories: Military analysis.

Sorry, Mr. President, You're All Out of TroopsBut maybe France can help solve the Iraq mess.

By Fred Kaplan
Posted Wednesday, Aug. 29, 2007, at 6:31 PM ET
George Bush at the VFW. Click image to expand.

President George W. Bush's behavior gets more baffling every day. Most leaders in his predicament would be recalibrating their rhetoric, seeking to alter expectations, so that the inevitable drawdown of U.S. troops from Iraq won't appear to be a defeat.

Instead, Bush is doing the opposite. Twice this past week, he has appeared before his most bedrock base (the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars), promised to give his commanders whatever they need for victory, and lambasted Congress for so much as contemplating withdrawal, a step, he warned, that would imperil civilization and free peoples everywhere.

He is willfully ignoring two facts. First, almost nobody in a position of power or much influence is advocating a complete withdrawal from Iraq. Second, a partial withdrawal is certain to take place in the next nine months, and this has nothing to do with Congress.

This has been noted time and time again, but apparently it bears repeating: The U.S. Army and Marines are simply running out of combat troops.

Adm. Michael Mullen, the incoming chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified at his confirmation hearings last month that the "surge" in Iraq could not be sustained at present levels past April 2008.

There are a few ways to remedy this shortfall, all of them impractical or infeasible. First, soldiers' tours of duty in Iraq, which were recently extended from 12 months to 15 months, could be stretched further to 18 months. However, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, told me, during a recent interview for a separate story, that this idea is "off the table." As it should be: The relentless rotation cycles have already compelled many soldiers and junior officers to quit the Army; pushing duty and tolerance much further might not just exhaust the troops beyond limits but spark an exodus from the armed forces.

Gen. Cody said his personal preference is the "full mobilization" of the Reserves. A president does have the statutory authority to call up to a million reservists, including retirees, into active service for the duration of a war or an emergency. But this step hasn't been taken since World War II, and for good reason: It would be a huge social disruption; and, unless a president persuades the population that it's necessary—unless the war is almost universally seen as vital to the nation's security—the call up would have politically explosive consequences as well. (Lyndon Johnson expanded the draft rather than fully mobilize the Reserves during the Vietnam War.) There is no sign that Bush is preparing the public for such a dramatic step now.

Another option would be to persuade other countries to send more troops, but those that aren't long gone are in the process of leaving. Finally, there's the draft, which just isn't going to happen and, in any case, it would take well over a year to call up, train, equip, and deploy fresh brigades for combat.

The long and short of it is that by next spring some of the 20 U.S. combat brigades currently in Iraq—perhaps as many as a quarter to a half of them—will be pulling out, and nobody will replace them. This is a mathematical fact, quite apart from anything to do with the upcoming election or the war's diminishing popularity.

Whether or not you regard this fact as lamentable, President Bush only makes things worse by howling that any pullback would erode American power and embolden the terrorists. Even if his warning is true, for a president to state it so urgently, over and over and over and over, deepens the damage when the storm hits. And given that the storm is certain to hit, it's irresponsible—it's baffling—that he's howling so loudly.

VIEW AS SINGLE PAGE
Print This ArticlePRINTDiscuss this in The FrayDISCUSSEmail to a FriendE-MAIL
Share on FacebookPost to MySpace!Share with MixxDigg ThisShare with RedditShare with del.icio.usShare with FurlShare with Ma.gnolia.comShare with SphereShare with Stumble Upon
Fred Kaplan is Slate's "War Stories" columnist and the author of Daydream Believers: How a Few Grand Ideas Wrecked American Power. He can be reached at .
Photograph of George Bush by Paul J. Richards/AFP/Getty Images.
Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum
What did you think of this article?
POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES

Remarks from the Fray:

After reading the synopsis of George W. Bush's speech to the VFW and the American Legion, both of which organizations are made up of military veterans, I am coming to the reluctant conclusion that the Commander-in-Chief is as out of touch with the objective realities of the war in Iraq today as der Fuehrer was with the military situation in Germany in 1945. He is heading very rapidly into Cloud-Cuckoo-Land, where he manipulates forces that do not exist except in his clouded little mind; forces that are not going to exist in Iraq.

Let's forget for a minute about how and why Bush got us into this war. That's old news and not relevant to what I'm trying to say. I'll ignore the hearts-and-minds issue too, a critical issue in any war against insurgents. The fact remains that in order to pacify Iraq and start rebuilding it, Bush must defeat the enemy militarily; break them to the point they give up.

To do that, he needs manpower. Lots of it. And I don't mean rear echelon types, the 'tail' that wags the line animal 'dog' in the field. He needs grunts, riflemen on the battle line. And he hasn't got them, nor can he get them.

After the end of the Cold War, the Army was reorganized to fight short, sharp hyperwars. This seemed the right way to go based on our experience in Grenada and in Gulf War I, where the duration of the fighting could be measured in hours. But that reorganization left our military without the ability to fight a sustained conflict like World War II, Korea or Vietnam. They don't have the manpower and they don't have the support structure they require to carry out that kind of mission successfully.

And because the war in Iraq does not threaten our national existence as World War II did, neither the People nor the troops are willing to stay overseas for as long as it takes to win that kind of a war. Troops will hold still for a lot if they know there is a goal to be met, but that once the goal is reached, they will be going home. I can't say that's what is going on in Iraq. They will go because they are ordered to, but they won't stay there one minute longer than they have to; and they won't re-enlist once their term of service is up. That's why Bush had to put stop-loss orders into place. No one wants to fight his war if they don't have to. The Army has shot its bolt, manpower-wise. The troops just are not available, nor will they be any time soon.

So where does that leave George W. Bush, the Decider? Sitting in the Situation Room beneath the White House with his generals, moving markers around on the situation maps, trying to find some way out of the political trap whose jaws are closing on him. Seems to me I've seen this scene somewhere before...

--Cyrano

(To reply, click here.)

What even the most benighted Bush apologists should acknowledge, if they have a shred of concern for their country, is that once it became obvious that the war in Iraq -- the supposed "war for civilization" -- was not going to be a cakewalk, Bush simply bagged the whole thing.

You don't fight a "war for civilization" while you're cutting taxes and refusing any significant increase in boots on the ground. The last time fascists blindsided this country, in 1941, we put 15 million men under arms and kept them there until the sons-of-bitches were beaten, and then kept a goodly number of those men under arms just in case anybody got the idea they it might be tried again. Compare this with what Bush has done and what you see is somebody who isn't fighting a "war for civilization." You see somebody who has an agenda that he values more than that. I say it's protecting his tax cuts, but any Bush loyalists who have an alternative vision are welcome to correct me.

--the_slasher14

(To reply, click here.)

Bush won't draw down the troops during his administration. So when President Obama begins a more thorough draw down, Bush and his supporters will be able to say they were right, no matter what happens in Iraq.

If Iraq becomes more peaceful with only 10,000 American troops, then Bush and his supporters will say that he was right to invade and "stay the course." If Iraq blows up into a full sectarian civil war after the real withdrawal, then Bush and his supporters will say that he was right in his dire predictions about what will happen when we leave. They'll say "We were stabbed in the back again!" He's making more noise about the disaster that will happen when we leave because he now thinks disaster is a more likely result. He no longer thinks we'll be "victorious," even on his terms. It's all very self-serving. Kaplan's big mistake is in believing that Bush cares about the country. All he cares about is himself. Luckily, most Americans see this now.

--Tlauf

(To reply, click here.)

Bush's unwillingness to grasp reality is less a function of his stupidity or stubbornness than his unparalleled instinct for self-preservation. It's the same game he's been playing his whole presidency--never accept blame OR responsibility when things go wrong (that's for losers); never change course (that shows weakness); always take credit for what goes right (the perogative of the privileged). Bush has played out his hand so now he's got to bluff his way through the next 6 months. As he sees it, that's his only choice-- because the ONLY thing that matters to him is retaining the tattered remains of his "legacy."

--bodack

(To reply, click here.)

(9/1)

Washington Post
The Washington Post
OPINIONS
Let the Oil Deals Flow
Raad Alkadiri | Congress should not interfere in the oil industry's contract negotiations with the Iraqi government.