In a move that critics denounce as a 'backdoor draft," the US Marines and Army are recalling to active duty thousands of men and women who have been discharged for several years. According to the Associated Press, thousands of Marines are being recalled because of "a shortage of volunteers" to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Up to 2,500 Marines will be brought back at any one time, but there is no cap on the total number of Marines who may be forced back into service in the coming years as the military battles the war on terror. The call-ups will begin in the next several months.
This is the first time the Marines have had to use the involuntary recall since the early days of the Iraq combat. The Army has ordered back about 10,000 soldiers since the start of the war.
The BBC reports that while only 2,500 of the 60,000 inactive Marines who comprise the Individual Ready Reserve (IRR) will be recalled now, the authorization signed last month by President Bush is open-ended and will stop only when the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT) has ended, a sign that many thousands more could be called back to active duty in the coming months and years.
The Boston Globe reports that the former Marines will return to service for up to 18 months and will be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan next year. Marines and soldiers may be recalled up to eight years after they have been discharged. While the Marines have been meeting recruiting and retention goals, "it is short about 1,200 specialists in engineering, military police work, communications, and intelligence operations."
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Tuesday's announcement of the recall "raised some eyebrows" among military experts.
The Los Angeles Times reports that the Pentagon has had to "scramble" to meet personnel requirements, long after it was thought that so many troops would not be needed. But the continuing insurgency in Iraq, the sectarian violence which many believe has become a civil war, and the growing strength of the Taliban in Afghanistan, means the need for troops had not abated."The announcement surprised me," said Charles Henning, a retired Army officer who specializes in military affairs at the Congressional Research Service, the research arm of the Library of Congress. "I see no indication that they are having trouble manning their units."
Henning said the Marines' seven-month combat tours have perhaps "placed enough strain on the system and they don't want to be sending people back three or four times," he said. But it also could be that the rising US casualties in Iraq – where more than 2,600 troops have died and tens of thousands have been injured since the invasion – may be taking a toll on heavily used units.
For much of the conflict, the Army also has had to use "stop-loss orders" – which keep soldiers in their units even after their active-duty commitments are complete – as well as involuntary call-ups of its reservists. Both actions have been criticized as a "back-door draft" and are unpopular with service members, many of whom say they have already done their part.
"You can send Marines back for a third or fourth time, but you have to understand you are destroying their lives," said Paul Rieckhoff, founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. "It is not what they intended the all-volunteer military to look like."
Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, told the Times that he believes that the latest stop-loss announcements are the "latest sign" that more ground troops were required in Iraq.
"It is one of an avalanche of symptoms that the ground forces are overstretched by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan," Kagan said. "This administration needs to understand this is not a short-term problem, and it really needs a systemic fix in the size of the ground forces."
McClatchy News Service reports that Tuesday's announcement coincides with a report being issued Wednesday by two military experts that "the Marines are having to borrow equipment from non-deployed units and pre-positioned stockpiles to replace tanks, trucks, armored vehicles and other hardware worn out by more than three years of combat duty in Iraq."
The Iraq war also has put unprecedented wear and tear on the Marine Corps' trucks, tanks and other combat equipment, according to a report by the Center for American Progress and the Lexington Institute, two policy research groups that frequently study national security issues. The war has forced the Marines to keep about 40 percent of its ground combat equipment, 50 percent of its communications gear and 20 percent of its aircraft in Iraq, the report says.
Helicopters fly two to three times more hours than they should, tanks are being used four times as much as anticipated, and Humvees are being driven an average of 480 miles a month, 70 percent of which is off-road. The harsh desert and combat losses are chewing up other gear at nine times their planned rates. Humvees that were expected to last 14 years need to be replaced after only four years in the extreme conditions of the Iraqi desert, the report says.
The report's two authors, Larry J. Korb and Loren Thompson, say it will cost the Marines about $12 billion to replace their equipment, and that figure grows by about $5 billion a year every year the Marines remain in Iraq. Mr. Korb and Mr. Thompson reached a similar conclusion about the Army in a report earlier in the year.
Finally, the AP says that Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona, a longtime supporter of the war in Iraq, on Tuesday criticized the Bush administration for misleading the American public into thinking that the war would be "some kind of day at the beach."The potential 2008 presidential candidate ... said the administration had failed to make clear the challenges facing the military.
"I think one of the biggest mistakes we made was underestimating the size of the task and the sacrifices that would be required," McCain said. "Stuff happens, mission accomplished, last throes, a few dead-enders. I'm just more familiar with those statements than anyone else because it grieves me so much that we had not told the American people how tough and difficult this task would be."
On Monday, Sen. McCain also reiterated his opposition to an early withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, saying it would have "direct implications" for the US national security.
- Crusade in Arabia: The hard lessons (Lexington Institute)
- Poll: GOP better against terrorism, Dems better on Iraq (CNN)
- Dixie Chicks documentary could be election issue (Reuters)
- The scandalous tale Of Kate 'Mosque,' or, how rumor and speculation becomes reported fact around the world ("Eat the Press" - Huffington Post)
Feedback appreciated. E-mail Tom Regan.
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