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The Voice of the White House
Washington
D.C., October 26, 2006: “The most important issue being discussed
in the White House, aside from Rove’s evil attacks on black
Democrats, is the war in Iraq. The articles on the Falcon disaster
drew at least a quarter million viewers and has not made your Mr.
Harring a popular person at the Pentagon. As I understand it, a
number of DoD employees were drafted into service, writing fake
emails allegedly from Iraq denying the entire business but at this
point, the public has gotten wise to such things as they are wising
up to the federal blogger who always seem to have some sensational
“news” to trumpet after some terrible government failure. Many
of the more prominent bloggers take money for this sort of thing and
can certainly be expected to accuse Harring of having sex with the
mother of his own children. He
did such a good job that I passed him some material on the
activation of the National Guard that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have
cooked up for after the elections. I decided to let Mr. Harring have
all of this because it is his field and I am now working on another
matter.”
U.S.
says more GIs may be needed in Iraq
October 25, 2006
AP -
BAGHDAD,
Iraq - Two weeks before U.S. midterm elections, American officials
unveiled a timeline Tuesday for Iraq's Shiite-led government to take
specific steps to calm the world's most dangerous capital and said
more U.S. troops might be needed to quell the bloodshed. U.S.
officials previously said they were satisfied with troop levels and
had expected to make significant reductions by year's end. But a
surge in sectarian killings, which welled up this past summer,
forced them to reconsider.
The
Coming Storm: Activating the National Guard
October
26, 2006
by Brian Harring
It
doesn’t take a Yale graduate to recognize that Iraq is a
devastating mess. Sectarian war has broken out there between Sunni
and Shiite, those not fighting each other are fighting the
U.S., military casualties have tripled, there is wholesale theft on
the part of government friendly contractors and the Administration’s
approval ratings are on a steady downhill course.
The
total inflexibility of the President will not permit him to cease
and desist and the very idea of his walking away from his very own
precious mess is a foolish one. Bush will, as he has said in public
a number of times, never withdraw from Iraq as long as he is in
office.
So,
rather than negotiate, which he and his people are incapable of
doing under any circumstances, it has been decided, at the highest
levels, to smash any kind of sectarian or political opposition in
Iraq and then impose a Bush peace at the point of a gun.
To
do this, Bush must increase the troop levels in Iraq or fail and
since he would never admit failure, he and his people have decided
to double the troop levels and crush any opposition to the United
States by naked force.
And
where these troops coming from? Not from recruitment.
The
Army is scraping the bottom of the societal barrel by taking in
ex-cons, drug gang members, high school dropouts and anything warm
that can point and shoot a gun. The
manpower will come, without any question, from units already in
place in the United States as cadre or as members of the reserves
and, most especially, from the National Guard.
Forty-six
American National Gusrd units are slated to be activated, by
Presidential Order, suitably and fully equipped and shipped to Iraq
where they will reinforce current units (which will not be
withdrawn)
This
is pursuant to the President’s plan “to build up sufficient
troops to launch a massive attack on resistance units inside the
Iraqi capital of Baghdad, to destroy any present and future capacity
to launch attacks on Coalition troops
and to impress the current Iraqi government that unity of purpose is
vital and failure to achieve this unity can result in strong
measures” on the part of the United States “to secure a firm
democratic government, in practice as well as theory.”
All
of this is not a good idea because the problem of supply is a
disaster. Our troops have run out of weaponry which is not being
produced at sufficient levels, have to deal with badly worn
equipment that cannot function properly after three years of
sandstorms, logistical problems with clothing and food and with the
destruction of the bulk of the U.S. small-arms ammunition depot at
Camp Falcon What these recalled National Guardsmen will have to
shoot with, wear or eat is an enormous problem that does not faze
Bush in the slightest because is not interested in it.
In
addition to the activation of the following Guard units (after the
elections, based on Republican retention of both houses of Congress)
it is also planned to reactivate all military personnel who have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq within the past three years.
There will be no deferments on this recall; marriage, family,
education or work has no bearing on either the Guard activation or
the recall of veterans.
This
list, obtained with the good services of one of tbrnews writers, is
a copy of the order for activation, now awaiting Bush’s
signature and designed to be executed at the end of November. The
recall order will be issued at the same time.
Just
one signature from a madman and the lives of tens of thousands of
Americans will be devastatingly disrupted but as Bush has two more
years as President, the victims of his stupid pigheadedness will
have to wait that long to be able to return to what passes for
normal. Their wives might leave them, their jobs given to others or, more
important, they will come home in rubber bags or spend the rest of
their lives warehoused in vet’s hospitals with many body parts
missing or useless but unless they mutiny, as is now happening, they
have nothing to say.
The
American public will soon have a great deal to say.
31st
Armored Brigade (Separate)
31st
Chemical Brigade
207th
Infantry Group
[AK
ARNG]
1-207th Regiment (GS)
40th
Infantry Division
121th Medevac Air Ambulance
260th
MP Command
32d
Army Air & Missile Defense - Det 1
48th
Infantry Brigade (Mech)
294th Military Intelligence Detachment (CI)
1-294 Infantry (Light)
·
Headquarters, Headquarters
Company
·
A Company
·
B Company
·
Headquarters, Service Detachment
·
29th
Infantry Bde (Separate)
116th
Armor Cavalry Brigade
66th
Infantry Brigade
38th
Infantry Division
2nd
Brigade, 34th Infantry Division
130th
Field Artillery Brigade
26th
Brigade, 29th ID (Light)
·
272nd
Chemical Co
Co
A 118th Medical Bn
34th
Infantry Division
184th
Transportation Brigade
1387th QM Co (Water Supply)
140th Regiment
495th
Transportation Battalion
1-221st
Cavalry
150th Maint Co –
·
197th
Field Artillery Bde
50th
Brigade, 42nd ID
254th
Regiment (Combat Arms)
30th
Heavy Separate Brigade
113th
Field Artillery Brigade
37th
Armored Brigade
189th
Regiment (RTI)
28th
Infantry Division (Mechanized)
201st Evac Hospital
43rd
Military Police Brigade
278th
Armored Cavalry Regiment
300th
MI Brigade (Linguist)
29th
Infantry Division (Light)
2-19
Special Forces Group
213th
Regiment (RTI)
This
is one half of the activation order. Other Guard units will follow
when the first activated units are equipped and in place.
The
only people profiting from this charnel house square dance are
Halliburton and coffin makers.
U.S.
troops on active duty call for Iraq withdrawal
October
25, 2006
Reuters
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - More than 200 active duty U.S. armed service members,
fed up with the war in Iraq, have joined an unusual protest calling
for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, organizers said on
Wednesday.
The
campaign, called the Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, is the
first of its kind in the Iraq war and takes advantage of Defense
Department rules allowing active duty troops to express personal
opinions to members of Congress without fear of retaliation,
organizers said.
"As
a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I
respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the
prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from
Iraq," states the appeal posted on the campaign's Web site at
www.appealforredress.org.
"Staying
in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for
U.S. troops to come home," it adds.
The
Web site allows service members to sign the appeal that will be
presented to members of Congress. Organizers said the number of
signatories has climbed from 65 to 219 since the appeal was posted a
few days ago and Wednesday when it was publicly launched. There are
140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Active
duty service members are restricted in expressing personal views
publicly. But rules governed by the Military Whistleblower
Protection Act give them the right to speak to a member of Congress
respectfully while off-duty and out of uniform, making clear they do
not speak for the military.
In
a conference call with reporters, a sailor, a Marine and a soldier
who had served in the Iraq operation said American troops there have
increasingly had difficulty seeing the purpose of lengthy and
repeated tours of duty since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Their
misgivings have intensified this year as the country has edged
toward civil war, they said.
"The
real grievances are: Why are we in Iraq if the weapons of mass
destruction are not found, if the links to al Qaeda are not
substantiated," said Marine Sgt. Liam Madden of Rockingham,
Vermont, who was in Iraq from September 2004 to February 2005 and is
based at Quantico, Virginia.
"The
occupation is perpetuating more violence," he said. "It's
costing way too many Iraqi civilian and American service member
lives while it brings us no benefit."
The
campaign's sponsoring committee includes the activist groups Iraq
Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families
Speak Out.
Navy
Seaman Jonathan Hutto of Atlanta, stationed at Norfolk, Virginia and
the first service member to join the campaign, said a similar appeal
during the Vietnam War drew support from over 250,000 active duty
service members in the early 1970s.
Military Repair Work Booms
'Reset'
Contractors Reap a Bonanza Amid Effect of Iraqi Conflict
October 23, 2006
by Jonathan Karp
Wall Street
Journal
ANNISTON, Ala. -- The sprawling Army depot here teems with
war-torn tanks and armored vehicles. Inside red-brick buildings,
mechanics work six days a week to cut the backlog, repairing and
upgrading the equipment so that it can be sent back to Iraq.
More than three years of operations in Iraq have strained
budgets and resources, leaving the Army scrounging for money to
develop a new generation of high-tech weapons. But for now it is
flush with funds to patch up existing equipment, and defense
contractors are getting a bigger share of this booming business,
which is known as "reset." Much of the Army's work here,
for instance, relies on engineering and management expertise
provided by General
Dynamics Corp. and BAE
Systems PLC.
Congress recently approved $17.1 billion to repair, upgrade
and replace Army vehicles, and a further $5.8 billion for Marine
equipment in the current fiscal year. The Army portion alone is $4
billion more than the administration's original budget request for
fiscal 2007, and will require government depots to triple their
workload, by revenue, compared with fiscal 2006.
The bulk of Army reset money is slated to go to private
industry. Some $5 billion will be used to buy replacement vehicles,
and $5.3 billion will flow to contractors for maintenance work,
according to Pentagon estimates. The biggest recipients are likely
to be General Dynamics, which makes the Abrams tank and the Stryker
armored vehicle; BAE, which makes the Bradley fighting vehicle; and
AM General LLC and Armor
Holdings Inc. for work on Humvees.
Such work is likely to be reflected not only in
third-quarter earnings reports but for the foreseeable future.
That's because even if war budgets, known as supplemental funding,
begin to decline, "the portion for reset and procurement is
likely to rise," says David Strauss, a defense analyst at UBS
Investment Research. Compared with the regular Pentagon budget,
reset funding is small, but it provides steady revenue for companies
and could help fend off an expected slow down in weapons spending.
"It's a good business, and it comforts investors that this kind
of money will be out there for a few more years," he says.
Defense companies have positioned themselves for a surge in
maintenance business by forging partnerships with the military
depots, instead of competing against them as they once did. At the
same time, the depots have introduced lean-manufacturing practices
to become more efficient. The biggest constraint in clearing the
recent backlog of battered vehicles hasn't been factory space or
trained workers, but rather funding, depot officials say.
Anniston Army Depot illustrates how the partnership model
helps both government and industry. On a recent Saturday, building
No. 400 was abuzz with more than 500 people working over
sand-crusted heavy armored vehicles. Seventy-ton tanks stood
stripped of their turrets, tread and engines, which were taken to
other buildings for work. Chassis of tanks and other armored
vehicles ready for reassembly had "OK" chalked in repaired
areas.
Though no private contractors were in the building, their
contributions were evident: The spare parts arranged neatly at work
stations were provided by privately managed supply chains. The
companies that make the vehicles also are contracted to analyze the
wear or battle damage, prescribe a fix and, in the case of upgrades,
guarantee the work. "It's the engineering and provisioning of
material that really consume a lot of the time, effort and
dollars," says Jack Cline, deputy to the commander at the
Anniston depot. "The touch labor is the easy piece."
Outsourcing has freed up resources to help the depots deal
with the heavy toll on military gear. Anniston has quadrupled its
vehicle output since the Iraq war started, says Charles Williams,
director of production. Current Pentagon plans call for spending $1
billion to overhaul or upgrade 387 tanks this fiscal year, meaning
Anniston -- which will take a big share of that work -- will have to
ramp up again, potentially having to double output. Anniston
currently processes between 15 and 23 tanks a month.
Across town, BAE raced to build a $13 million factory last
year to overhaul other armored vehicles. BAE, which bought vehicle
maker United Defense Industries Inc. in 2005, has a big reset
business for its Bradley vehicles at Red River depot in Texas, but
the Anniston bet also is paying off in multimillion-dollar
contracts. Robert Houston, a BAE vice president in Anniston, says
the expansion has transformed the company's local business. Its
number of employees has doubled to some 800, and whereas the focus
used to be making steel tracks for armored vehicles, "now 70%
to 80% of our work is upgrading vehicles," he says.
BAE's strategy depends on winning follow-on contracts, and
Wall Street analysts believe the reset bonanza has room to run. Army
leaders foresee a need for at least $13 billion in annual reset
spending for fiscal 2008 and 2009.
Write to Jonathan Karp at jonathan.karp@wsj.com
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