Rumsfeld Hides Behind Army
Rumsfeld Hides Behind Army
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was asked yesterday about a new report indicating that more than half (54 percent) of U.S. soldiers in Iraq reported morale problems in their units.
The Army report indicates that troop morale is suffering due to lengthy deployments. One would expect the Secretary of Defense who sent the soldiers into war to now step up and take accountability, right?
“I’ve tried to get the Army to look at the length of the tours and I think at some point down the road they will,” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told a briefing.
It’s the Army’s fault. Rumsfeld’s trying to cut the length of tours, but the Army keeps getting in the way. Rumsfeld was alerted to the negative effect his stop-loss orders (which keep troops on the battlefield beyond their expected term of deployment) were having on troop morale when he visited Iraq-bound soldiers in Kuwait last year. Here’s what one soldier said:
“My husband and myself both joined a volunteer Army,” said the woman, who identified herself as a staff sergeant in a logistics unit from Fort Bragg, North Carolina. “Currently, I’m serving under the stop-loss. I would like to know how much longer you foresee the military using this program.”
Rumsfeld said the policy “is something you prefer not to have to use in a perfect world.”
(snip)
“It’s basically a sound principle. It’s nothing new; it’s been well understood” by soldiers, Rumsfeld said. “My guess is it will continue to be used as little as possible, but that it will continue to be used.”
So in December 2004, he says extended deployments are a sound principle and will continue to be used. Then, troop morale goes down, and Rumsfeld suddenly hides behind the Army. We shouldn’t expect any less from the man who said, “you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want.”
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The new Bushcon meme: “Blame the Army”
They can’t very well blame the liberals this time. I’d say they are running out of people to blame for their own failures. Headline:
“GOP hobbled by scapegoat shortage”
July 21st, 2005 at 11:10 amRemember this big distortion from 5 years ago? Irony.
“If called on by the commander in chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report, ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’”
– Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush, Aug. 3, 2000
http://archive.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/08/07/lie_week/print.html
July 21st, 2005 at 11:16 amBush needs to fire that guy
July 21st, 2005 at 11:28 amI feel really sorry for our GI’s over there. They have a thankless task pushed on them by unthinking leaders.
I personally am against the Iraq operation, but I’m not going to do a Vietnam era thing and hold it against the actual troops themselves. Sure, if i talk to some individually and disagree, I’ll tell them I disagree. But I won’t automatically blame them for our leaders faults. By the same token, I won’t put a support the troops ribon on my car either.
July 21st, 2005 at 11:37 amThere is two side every story, like Rummy Dummy said you go to war with the army you have and not the army you would like. I am sure the army feels they have to go to war with the dumb leaders that says go to war and not smart leaders they would like. It’s not to late yet.
July 21st, 2005 at 11:55 amHeard they are toying with idea of upping the recruitment age to 42 now! Will go before the Senate….you have got to be kidding…..
July 21st, 2005 at 12:41 pmWith the Army not meeting their recruitment quotas and the possibility of the states challenging the pentagon for control of the national guard, conscription as a solution seems the only answer for these long deployment problems. Once again, Kerry was correct.
July 21st, 2005 at 12:51 pmright on David B — one of the few good things Kerry did was his repeated use of “backdoor draft.” so true.
July 21st, 2005 at 1:04 pmFrom the report (notice the actual report is linked by thinkparanoid):
The OIF 2004 confirmed suicide rate was 8.5 per 100,000 Soldiers. This rate is lower than the 2003 OIF rate of 18.0 per 100,000 and the Army average annual rate for the 9-year period 1995-2003 of 12 per 100,000.
And…
The report said 54 percent of soldiers rated their units’ morale as low or very low. The comparable figure in a year-earlier Army survey was 72 percent.
So you can conclude that morale is improving. And here is what Blackfive says about troop morale (how many of you so-called progressives read military blogs?)
July 21st, 2005 at 1:10 pmhttp://www.blackfive.net/main/2004/03/troop_morale.html
I read Hack and Operation Truth. Black Five is a joke.
July 21st, 2005 at 1:18 pmSteed,
Here’s what Blackbeard the pirate says about morale…”the floggings will continue until morale improves.”
The military making a statement about its own morale is meaningless. Statistics have always lied when applied correctly. Wake-up.
July 21st, 2005 at 1:19 pmI’ve got news for you. Joining the military doesn’t turn you into a saint. The armed forces are just like every other segment of society. Roughly 50% are decent human beings.
July 21st, 2005 at 1:20 pmThe bottom 5 governors are all Repugnicans. @006-8 are going to sweep them all out.
http://atrios.blogspot.com/2005_07_17_atrios_archive.html#112196670535331303
July 21st, 2005 at 1:48 pmGGG: Only if we suddenly have honest elections again. Fat chance.
July 21st, 2005 at 2:31 pmStop loss and extension of a deployment are two separate issues.
Stop loss, when in effect, lasts from the time a unit is placed on alert until the unit is either stood down from alert or 90 days after redeploying (returning home).
Additionally all it means is that if, during the period described above, if a soldier is supposed to End Term of Service (ETS) or retire (unless for attaining maximum age) they won’t unil the 90 days after redeployment has run. After that they will ETS or retire normally.
There’s no sinister motivation for this. It’s done solely to stabilize manpower for planning the deployment.
July 21st, 2005 at 3:19 pmI’m surprised the Army hasn’t back to recall Korean Era vets. Oh, that’s next month.
July 21st, 2005 at 3:42 pmI’m getting really tired of Rumsfeld’s use of the phrase “in a perfect world”. The military has never planned for fighting in a perfect world …ever…yet his comment implies that’s why things aren’t going our way. If anything, the administration wasn’t aware that we didn’t live in a perfect world when they made their plans but the military knew. Shinseki knew.
July 21st, 2005 at 5:06 pmDumsfeld is probably the worst offender, but when the Bush regime can’t find a viable scapegoat they push the “it’s not perfect” excuse.
That’s a lame rhetorical device intended to cow opponents into submission with the tacit understanding that nobody and nothing is perfect. Therefore the “it’s not perfect” defense is perfectly meaningless just like most of the nonsense they cram down our throats.
July 22nd, 2005 at 10:21 amRumsfeld fought expanding the size of the army for a long time, at least until Jan 04.
The size of the army is one of the factors determining tour length in Iraq.
He must go.
July 28th, 2005 at 12:45 pm