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Army Considers Longer Combat Tour Again
By ANNE FLAHERTY - Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON(AP) The Army is considering whether it will have to extend the combat tours of troops in Iraq if President Bush opts to maintain the recent buildup of forces through spring 2008.

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren testified Tuesday that the service is reviewing other options, including relying more heavily on Army reservists or Navy and Air Force personnel, so as not to put more pressure on a stretched active-duty force.

Most soldiers spend 15 months in combat with a guaranteed 12 months home, a rotation plan that already has infuriated Democrats because it exceeds the service's goal of giving troops equal time home as in combat. In coming weeks, the Senate will vote on a proposal by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would restrict deployments.

"It's too early to look into the next year, but for the Army we have to begin to plan," Geren told the Senate Armed Services Committee. "We have to look into our options."

Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq war commander, suggested Sunday that conditions on the ground might not be stable enough by September to justify a drop in force levels, and he predicted that stabilizing Iraq could take a decade. Earlier this year, Bush ordered the deployment of some 30,000 additional troops as part of a massive U.S.-led security push around Baghdad and the western Anbar province.

There are about 156,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

When asked by Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Mich., whether maintaining the force buildup would affect soldiers' 15-month combat schedules, Geren said he was unsure and cited "numerous options" available, including a "different utilization of the Guard and Reserve" and relying on the other services for help.

"We're committed to filling the requirements that the combatant commander asks," Geren said. "We have been able to do so up until now, and we will continue to do so."

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Iraq is American Revolution in reverse

   As our invasion of Iraq drags on, year after year and death after death, there has been a reasonable tendency to compare this fiasco to our Vietnam fiasco, strongly suggesting that people from Texas (Lyndon Johnson, George Bush) are incapable of recognizing a bloody quagmire while wading about in it, probably because it is not their blood.
   But allowing for role reversal, there is also a significant similarity to what went on in the late 1700s, when the British were the invading force and the rebelling American colonists were our heroes, fighting for their own form of government. As with Iraq, where a significant percentage of the population, but not all, wants a government other than that being imposed by the invader, a significant percentage of the colonists, but not all, wanted a government other than that imposed by the invader. As in Iraq, where extremists are willing to die for what they believe, American colonists were willing to die for what they believed. Probably the colonial Tories and the English regarded the American revolutionaries as much extremists as we consider the self-sacrificing Muslims to be extremists now. Throughout history, one man’s hero is another man’s nut case.
   As with the American Revolution, wherein the greatest military power of that time was defeated by the courage and determination of a weaker opponent, the greatest military power of this time has been defeated by the courage and determination of a weaker opponent in Vietnam and Iraq.
   We taught the lesson in the 1700s. Why don’t we understand it today?
   C.J. GUARE
   Scotia

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Exhausting the troops  

  First published: Saturday, June 23, 2007

By now it is well known that the Bush administration has ill served U.S. troops in Iraq in many ways. The invasion force was too few in number to secure the country once Saddam Hussein was overthrown, exposing American forces to the lawlessness that preceded the insurgency. Unarmored Humvees left soldiers vulnerable to roadside bombs. Equipment wore out quickly under desert conditions. Morale sagged as the White House continually asked more of the troops by extending their deployments. And government medical care for returning soldiers was exposed in the press as inadequate, sometimes scandalously so.
But no price seems too high for this administration. According to a Tuesday article in USA Today, U.S. commanders in Iraq have rejected the recommendation of Army psychologists that combat troops be given one month off the front lines for every three months in combat.

Why?

The Army psychologists, Col. Carl Castro and Maj. Dennis McGurk, note that the one-month reprieve is similar to what was accorded to GIs during World War II. Yet U.S. commanders in Iraq have proposed an alternative: two or three days of recovery inside fortified areas after eight days under fire.

Brig. Gen. Joseph Anderson bluntly asserts that "we would never get the job done of securing" Baghdad if "we went out for three months" and came back for one month of recovery. The ground forces commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, dismisses comparisons to World War II. In Iraq, he says, U.S. troops "are out there consistently every single day. So you have to be mentally and physically tough."

But no soldier is superhuman. As the psychologists warn, 30 percent of troops in Iraq already have signs of anxiety, depression or acute stress. To compound the stress through extended tours of duty, and no significant relief from combat, will only put more troops at risk of mental health problems. American troops have never spent as much time on the front lines, says Col. Castro, including Vietnam and World War II.

The harsh truth is that there are still too few troops in Iraq to allow a one-month recovery period, even with the surge of 28,000 soldiers to secure Baghdad. This war has always asked too much of too few on the front lines, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, who has a record for speaking his mind, ought to come out and say so.

We're waiting.

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Throughout history, one man’s hero is another man’s nut case.

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McNULTY VOTES AGAINST IRAQ WAR FUNDING BILL

March 23, 2007 Contact:  Lisa Blumenstock, Press Secretary
  
McNULTY VOTES AGAINST IRAQ WAR FUNDING BILL

(Washington, DC): Congressman Michael R. McNulty today voted against the supplemental appropriations bill to continue funding the War in Iraq. He issued the following statement:

In the spring of 1970, during my first term as Town Supervisor of Green Island, I testified against the War in Vietnam at a Congressional Field Hearing in Schenectady, New York.

Several months after that testimony, my brother, HM3 William F. McNulty, a Navy Medic, was killed in Quang Nam Province.

I have thought -- many times since then -- that if President Nixon had listened to the voices of reason back then, my brother Bill might still be alive.

As a Member of Congress today, I believe that the Iraq War will eventually be recorded as one of the biggest blunders in the history of warfare.

In October of 2002, I made a huge mistake in voting to give this President the authority to take military action in Iraq. I will not compound that error by voting to authorize this war's continuation.

On the contrary, I will do all that is within my power to end this war, to bring our troops home, and to spare other families the pain that the McNulty family has endured every day since August 9th, 1970.

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27 suspected terrorists captured in raids      
Sunday, 01 July 2007  

Maj. Ehsan Moddafar Uraby, the planning officer of 3rd Battalion, 1st Brigade, 11th Iraqi Army Division shakes hands with Radcliff, Ky., native U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jeff Broadwater, the commander of 3rd Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division from Fort Stewart, Ga., after receiving a combat patch as a symbol of brotherhood at Combat Outpost War Eagle June 26. The Soldiers, operating in Baghdad with the 2nd BCT, 82nd Airborne Div., and their Iraqi counterparts planned a mission to clear Hayy Al Wazariyah industrial park in the Adhamiyah District of Baghdad. U.S. Army photo by Spc. Leith Edgar, 7th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment.BAGHDAD — Coalition forces captured 27 suspected terrorists, including an alleged terrorist with ties to Iranian elements, during missions conducted across Iraq Friday as Operation Phantom Thunder continues, U.S. military officials reported.
Coalition forces detained a suspected secret cell terrorist Friday in Baghdad’s Sadr City section. It is believed the suspected terrorist has close ties to Iranian terror networks and is responsible for numerous attacks on Iraqi civilians as well as on Iraqi and Coalition forces in Baghdad.

The detainee is also suspected of recruiting Iraqis to fill the ranks of Iranian terror groups operating in Iraq, officials said.

“Coalition troops continue to target the terrorists who bring explosively formed penetrators and other aid into Iraq,” said U.S. Army Lt. Col. Christopher Garver, a Multi-National Force-Iraq spokesperson. “We remain committed to dismantling terror networks that seek to kill innocent Iraqis and Coalition forces.”

Explosively formed penetrators are sophisticated roadside bombs designed to penetrate armored vehicles.

This and other ongoing military operations are part of an overall offensive against insurgents in Iraq called Operation Phantom Thunder, which began June 15, once all “surge” troops were in place.

Also Friday, Coalition troops killed three terrorists and detained 26 others during a series of operations targeting al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leaders and terrorist-bomb networks.

Coalition troops disrupted the al-Qaeda in Iraq senior leader network during a raid on several buildings east of Fallujah. Three terrorists were killed and 16 suspects were detained.

In Anbar province Friday, Coalition forces raided a suspected terrorist haven northeast of Karmah. The ground forces captured four individuals at the scene, including one man who allegedly has ties to a senior al-Qaeda leader who was killed during a May 1 Coalition operation.

Just south of Baghdad, Coalition forces Friday raided a building in search of a suspected agent for a leader in the Baghdad vehicle-bomb network. The ground forces detained two suspected terrorists and moved to a second building, where they found and captured the suspected agent.

Also Friday, Coalition troops captured a close associate of the suspected military commander for al-Qaeda forces in the Tarmiyah area during a raid west of the town. And in Mosul Friday, Coalition forces detained two suspected terrorists while targeting the alleged al-Qaeda emir in Kirkuk, believed to be responsible for issuing anti-coalition edicts.

(Compiled from Multi-National Force-Iraq and Multi-National Corps-Iraq news releases.)

In other developments throughout Iraq:

•           Multi-National Division-Baghdad attack helicopter crews killed one insurgent and wounded another in southern Baghdad June 29.

•           A combined Iraqi-Coalition Forces operation netted 41 individuals on the Iraqi army’s persons of interest list June 27.

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Coalition, Iraqi troops fight terrorists            
Saturday, 30 June 2007

U.S. Army Spc. Raymond Henriquez and other Soldiers with Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry Regiment, get ready for a combined cordon-and-search with the Iraqi police in the West Rashid district of Baghdad, Iraq, June 26, 2007. U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Tierney Nowland.BAGHDAD — Americans still face a tough fight inside Baghdad, but the trend lines are improving, the commander of Multi-National Division-Baghdad said Friday. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., speaking from Iraq, told Pentagon reporters that the overall trend lines in the city are positive. “The number of attacks, first of all, has come down,” he said. “The effect of those attacks has come down significantly.”One example is in car bombs. While the number of car bomb attacks has remained relatively constant since November 2006, the effects of those attacks have dropped.“That's due to safe neighborhoods that have been created, the safe markets that have been created,” he said. Division and Iraqi forces have worked hard to target car-bomb cells, and the cells used to command and control the bombers, he said.The number of murders in Baghdad also has dropped, he said. There have been five murders in two days and while any murder is unfortunate, “the numbers are way lower than they were when we started this,” Fil said.The division is also working to reconcile sectarian groups and bring more people under the Iraqi government umbrella.“We are in reconciliation with many of the tribes both inside and outside of Baghdad, and it is not a matter of arming militias,” he said. “In fact, these tribes are already well armed. What we are doing, though, is embarking in a dialogue with them, and some of them who have previously been fighting us have come to us as we have spoken with them, and they want to fight with us.”Fil said Iraqis “are tired of al Qaeda and the influence of al Qaeda in their tribes and in their neighborhoods, and they want them cleaned out.”The groups want the alliance, and Fil said it is a positive development. However, officials remain cautious. “We are working closely with the government of Iraq and the Iraqi security forces,” he said.Any who volunteer to work with the division must sign an oath of allegiance to the nation of Iraq. “They have to renounce violence,” he said. “If we do embark upon organizing them into groups, it has to be done under the auspices of either the Ministry of Defense or the Ministry of Interior.”The division is working with a group of 1,500 men in the Abu Ghraib area who want to serve in the security forces of Iraq. They are very carefully vetted with tribal leadership, and then they are brought before an Interior Ministry panel for the interview process.“So it's a deliberate program,” Fil said. “I think it's got huge promise. We're very excited about it. It is not just on tribes, it's also inside the city in some of the neighborhoods. We'd like to do the same thing with some of the Shiia groups as well, both on the east and west side of the rivers.”(Story by Jim Garamone, American Forces Press Service.)In other developments throughout Iraq:•           Coalition Forces detained one suspected Secret Cell terrorist before dawn on Friday in Sadr City.  It is believed that the suspected terrorist has close ties to Iranian terror networks. •           Iraqi Security Forces and Multi-National Division – Baghdad Soldiers entered two mosques in the Rashid District of the Iraqi capital June 27-28 and uncovered two weapons caches.

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Bush resists calls to set date for troop withdrawal
Former war supporter says it’s time for a change
BY DAVID ESPO The Associated Press

   WASHINGTON — President Bush threatened to veto legislation setting a date for a troop withdrawal from Iraq on Tuesday despite growing bipartisan calls in Congress for an end to U.S. participation in the war and sharp criticism of the Iraqi government.
   As the Senate opened a new debate on the conflict, one of the president’s staunchest supporters bluntly said the administration had pursued the wrong policy for years after toppling Saddam Hussein. “The strategy we had before was not the right strategy,” said Sen. Christopher Bond, R-Mo. “We should have had a counterinsurgency strategy.”
   Asked later who bore responsibility for the error, Bond said, “Ultimately, obviously, the president.”
   Democrats said Bush’s newest strategy was hardly a success, either.
   Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said that since Bush ordered thousands more soldiers to Iraq last winter, “we’ve lost more than 600 troops, costing the American taxpayers more than $60 billion. The escalation has done nothing to bring the Iraqi government together. It’s done absolutely nothing to lessen the violence in Iraq.”
   Two Democrats, Sens. Carl Levin of Michigan and Jack Reed of Rhode Island, back legislation to require a troop withdrawal to begin within 120 days and be completed by the end of April 2008.
   A vote is expected next week, and Reid said nearly all Democrats support the proposal. Republican Gordon Smith of Oregon is a supporter as well, and Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, told reporters she may switch her position and vote for it, too.
   House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she would call for a vote on a similar measure by week’s end.
   The Senate proposal appears to be short of the 60 votes needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster. Bush’s veto threat applied to any legislation that sets an arbitrary date for withdrawal “without regard to conditions on the ground or the recommendations of commanders.”
   “Setting a date for withdrawal is equivalent to setting a date for failure,” he said in a written statement that employed terms similar to those he used earlier in the year when he vetoed legislation that set a target date for a withdrawal.
   In a further sign of eroding GOP support, Sen. Elizabeth Dole, R-N.C., called for troops to come home next year.
   “Simply put, our troops have been doing a great job but the Iraqi government has not,” she said. “Our commitment in Iraq is not indefinite, nor should the Iraqi government perceive it to be. It is my firm hope and belief that we can start bringing our troops home in 2008.”
   Also expected to come to a vote in the next two weeks is a plan to put into law recommendations from last winter’s report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group.
   The group called for removing all combat brigades not needed for training, force protection and counterterrorism by March 31, 2008.
   In an ominous sign for the White House, six Republicans have signaled support for the proposal, along with six Democrats.
   Despite a steady procession of Republicans calling for a change in course, several GOP lawmakers warned against a precipitous withdrawal.
   “I believe that our military in cooperation with our Iraqi security forces are making progress in a number of areas,” said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who recently returned from his sixth trip to the region. The GOP presidential candidate said he noted a dramatic drop in attacks in Ramadi in the western Anbar province.
   Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., who accompanied McCain to Iraq, also cited progress since Gen. David Petraeus took command several months ago and the additional troops began arriving.
   The Iraqis are “rejecting al-Qaida at every turn. I don’t want the Congress to be the cavalry for al-Qaida,” he said.
   Graham was also part of a group of senators who met privately during the day with Stephen Hadley, the president’s national security adviser, and Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, a top adviser on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The senator said afterward that the White House is looking at new ways to hasten progress in two primary areas: destroying al-Qaida in Iraq and forcing the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad to make political progress.

Quoted from bumblethru

Perhaps we would all know what Bush and the reps are REALLY doing about this war and their motives...IF ONLY the slanted media would print it!!! All we hear and read about is what the dems are against and not in favor of. Well where is the 'fair and balanced'...'let you decide'....media? Only one place I know of and that is Fox and A.M. radio!

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Iraq leader lambastes U.S. critics Clinton, other Democrats told to ‘come to their senses’
BY QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA The Associated Press

   BAGHDAD — Iraq’s embattled prime minister lashed out at American critics Sunday, saying Sen. Hillary Clinton and other Democrats who have called for his ouster should “come to their senses” and stop treating Iraq like “one of their villages.”
   Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki also lambasted the U.S. military for raids in Shiite neighborhoods of Baghdad, adding new strains ahead of next month’s showdown in Washington over the future of the U.S. mission.
   The grim combination of ongoing violence and political deadlock have increased frustration in both Washington and Baghdad, with American lawmakers increasingly critical of al-Maliki’s performance and Iraqi leaders growing weary of what they consider unfair U.S. criticism.
   Clinton and Sen. Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat and chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, have called for al-Maliki to be replaced.
   “There are American officials who consider Iraq as if it were one of their villages, for example Hillary Clinton and Carl Levin. They should come to their senses,” al-Maliki said at a news conference.
   Al-Maliki denounced recent U.S. military actions in the Baghdad Shiite neighborhoods of Shula and Sadr City that according to the Iraqis resulted in civilian deaths.
   “Concerning American raids on Shula and Sadr City, there were big mistakes committed in these operations. The terrorist himself should be targeted, not his family,” al-Maliki said. “We will not allow the detaining of innocent people.”
   Two nights ago, the U.S. military clashed with Shiite gunmen in Shula after they attacked an American patrol. The United States said eight “terrorists” were killed, but some Iraqis reported civilians were among the dead and injured.
   U.S. forces also are routinely raiding Shiite militiamen in Sadr City, often calling in helicopter fire.
   Al-Maliki launched his verbal counteroffensive about two weeks before the American commander in Iraq, Gen. David Petraeus, and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker are due in Washington to report to Congress on progress in Iraq since the introduction of 30,000 more American troops.
   The presence of those reinforcements has done little to bring about political reconciliation among Iraq’s Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds — the key to lasting stability.
   In the latest in a series of political crisis meetings, Iraq’s top leaders failed again Sunday to persuade the main Sunni bloc to join a new alliance of Shiites and Kurds to break the political impasse.
   This month’s decision by the Sunnis’ Iraqi Accordance Front to bolt the al-Maliki government plunged the country into a political crisis.
   During the meeting, attended by Crocker, the leaders endorsed holding provincial elections, releasing prisoners held without charge and changing the law preventing many former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party from holding government jobs and elected offi ce.
   White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore hailed the agreement as an “important symbol” of the commitment “to work together for the benefit of all Iraqis.”
   But details were left to a committee to hash out and it was far from certain that those steps would soon be implemented. Iraq’s oil law, for example, has been in the hands of a constitutional committee for months and has not emerged in parliament for a vote.
   During his press conference, the Shiite prime minister said a negative report by Petraeus would not cause him to change course, although he said he expected that the U.S. general would “be supportive of the government and will disappoint the politicians who are relying on it” to be negative.
   Nevertheless, al-Maliki appeared stung by the recent series of critical statements about his government, including one from President Bush, who said he was frustrated that al-Maliki had failed to make progress on political benchmarks. Crocker has said the lack of movement had been “highly disappointing.”
   Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, said Sunday that al-Maliki’s government “is still pretty much a disaster” despite some progress made.
   “It’s a democratically elected government, and I don’t think we can dictate to them,” McConnell said. Nonetheless, McConnell said, senators from both parties agree the Shiite prime minister has been “a huge disappointment.”