One of the biggest risks with the continued occupation is damaging our military beyond repair.
We do not have the troops to increase force strength to sufficient levels, therefore a continued stalemate or war of attrition is all we have. This strategy if prolonged could severly damage the military.
More below the fold:
Yahoo News
If the Army maintains the size of its force in Iraq over the next several years, it could risk a decline in the quality of the force and other severe problems, a Republican senator, defense analysts and retired military officers say.
On Saturday, the service's top general said that the Army has contingency plans for maintaining troop levels of 100,000 soldiers in Iraq over the next four years. Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said the plan is a worst-case scenario if the United States is unable to reduce its force in the face of a stubborn insurgency.
The United States now has about 138,000 troops in Iraq. About 100,000 are Army soldiers, including National Guard and Army Reserve troops. As Army chief of staff, Schoomaker's job is to train and equip the nation's largest military branch. Decisions about the size and makeup of the U.S. combat force in Iraq will be made by others, including commanders in the region and Bush administration officials.
Sen. Chuck Hagel (news, bio, voting record), R-Neb., a decorated Vietnam War veteran, said again Sunday that it's time to begin crafting an exit strategy. "We should start figuring out how we get out of there," Hagel said on This Week on ABC. "I think our involvement there has destabilized the Middle East. And the longer we stay there, I think the further destabilization will occur."
"The longer we stay there, the more similarities (to Vietnam) are going to come together," Hagel said.
If the Pentagon doesn't reduce U.S. ground forces in Iraq, the Army may face challenges in retention of soldiers.
So far this year, the Army, the Army National Guard and the Army Reserve have fallen significantly behind their recruiting goals. The Army and Army Guard are likely to miss their goals in 2005 by several thousand new soldiers, a development that could leave some units short of troops. The Army's top recruiter, Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, has said that 2006 could be even worse.
Some fear a decline in the quality of the force. Retired major general Bob Scales, former commandant of the Army War College, says without a reduction in U.S. ground forces in Iraq, soldiers are facing "third and fourth" tours of duty in Iraq. "You'll see the quality of the Army atrophy," Scales said.
Scales said it would become more difficult to recruit talented people, and young officers and midcareer enlisted soldiers, not easy to replace, could choose to leave.
Paul Van Riper, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant general, said he could envision a repeat of one negative byproduct of the Vietnam War: an exodus of experienced non-commissioned officers. "Are we going to break the force? We don't know," Van Riper said. "But a lot of key non-commissioned officers could end up leaving" if sent back repeatedly.
It's possible that U.S. troop levels in Iraq will come down as early as 2006 and avert what some view as a potential crisis. Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, said last month that a withdrawal of up to 30,000 U.S. troops might be possible next year.
Bush administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, have said reductions are possible, but they stressed that there is no timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops.
This is a very important discussion point; because worse case scenario is not failure in Iraq it is in fact breaking the military.
A stalemate and a preservation of our military force is a victory at this point and the best case scenario.
As far as what is going on in Iraq - here is a story that Raw Story put up.
Interview
This is an interview with Aaron Glantz who has made three trips into Iraq as an embedded reporter. He says the following:
ASZ: You were in the northern, Kurd-controlled provinces during the January elections. How long ago did you leave Iraq?
Glantz: I was last in Iraq in late February of this year.
ASZ: You traveled the country, and spent time in the "hot spots" such as Fallujah. What were the most profound changes you observed, from your first visit to your most recent - both good and bad? What sticks with you?
Glantz: I went to Fallujah after the US bombed it in May 2004. The city was completely destroyed. Houses, schools, mosques, shopping centers, everything had been bombed. So many people had been killed, in fact, that the municipal football stadium had to be turned into a graveyard for the dead.
I interviewed a 12-year-old boy who told me his 11-year-old best friend had been killed by a US military sniper in front of his school. A man who had been shot while he went out to get food aid from a neighborhood mosque told me he had never considered joining the resistance before but said "now I will fight until the last breath that I have" to force America to leave his country. Really, who could blame him?
ASZ: So, the "changes" you observed in Fallujah were not only physical, but a hastening of the negative perception of the occupation. Leaving Fallujah aside for a moment, were there any changes, anywhere in the country, that you would consider as "net positive" since the beginning of the war?
Glantz: After two years, there are no net positives as I see it. Saddam is gone, but he has been replaced by a cross between brutal occupation and anarchy.
There are no essential services and Abu Ghraib is still open for business. It didn't have to be this way. If Bush had gone in only with the idea to topple Saddam and then let the Iraqi people organize their own society withdrawing after two or three months it could have been better.
Abu Ghraib is still open and torture is still standard operating procedure although no pictures are being taken anymore. Can't this administration stop torturing people!
ASZ: Did you try to return to Fallujah when you were in Iraq earlier this year? I don't think anyone stuck stateside really has a grasp of how much real estate was razed during the November, 2004 assault on the city.
Glantz: I did not return to Fallujah unembedded this year. I determined it was no longer safe. I agree that people in the US have no idea what it's like to have a city as destroyed as Fallujah in your country. It's one of the reasons I decided to write the book.
ASZ: There's obviously a lot of jockeying for power still in progress behind the scenes. Did you ever get the sense that the average Iraqi felt more empowered by the political process that is taking place, or was it simply a matter of "meet the new boss, same as the old boss"?
Glantz: I was in Iraq during the election and I can tell you many people were very excited. But the problem is that the Bush Administration refuses to listen to the elected government of Iraq, which campaigned on the platform of getting the US out in nine months to a year. My fear is that the Bush Administration is cutting out the ways that the Iraqi people can speak their mind legally in Iraq giving regular Iraqis against the occupation no alternative than to pick up the gun.
ASZ: The ACLU is suing the Department of Defense for release of the remaining Abu Ghraib photos and videos. Do you think the American people need to see these images? Why or why not? And I ask this in the context of how the images will play in Iraq, if released: will they reopen scabbed over wounds? Has that wound ever healed for Iraqis? Would release of the photos simply reinforce prevailing local opinions of the occupation?
Glantz: The US government continues to hold more than 10,000 security detainees at Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca in Southern Iraq. These people get no trial, no lawyer, they don't get charged with anything -- all they get is a secret military tribunal every six months where the military decides if they're a continued threat. What the U.S. military needs to do is close Abu Ghraib prison like Bush said he would and withdraw the US military from Iraq so the Iraqi people can run their own affairs.
I would add - stop torturing people as well. It is unbelievable that this country, which is presumably not a rogue state, cannot refrain from torture.
I think the Bush Administration is trying to block release of the Abu Ghraib prison photos so that Americans don't see them and have a negative reaction. Iraqis already know that this stuff is going on and continues and as I said: when the photos first came out they made a bigger splash in the US than in Baghdad where they simply confirmed what folks already knew.
Quote: "Iraqis already know that this stuff is going on and continues" it's called adding fuel to the fire and it is un-American and puts our troops at risk. Hasn't anyone heard of Army values?
ASZ: The Iraqi government is struggling to craft a new constitution that must (obviously) address many competing interests. It would appear that they have one chance to get it right. Do you think the Iraqi "framers" will ultimately get it right, or is there too much pressure just to get it done, rather than to get it done right?
Glantz: The important thing about the new Iraqi constitution is not so much what the document says is how much power the document has in Iraq. The interim Constitution forbids military tribunals, yet the US currently runs military tribunals at Abu Ghraib. Remember also that US Ambassador Zalmay Khalizad must approve the wording of the Constitution.
Well, I think people have a sense of the problems in Iraq - comments anyone?