dissent from the officer corps on the tactics being used to fight the Iraq insurgency
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5662745/By Michael Moran
Brave New World Columnist MSNBC
Updated: 4:03 p.m. ET Aug. 10, 2004 In the grim calculus of the Iraq war, August already is shaping up as a particularly ugly month for the U.S.-led coalition. Only 10 days into August, 25 American troops have lost their lives, 21 of them in combat.
What to make of such figures is a question troubling the nation at many levels – in politics, the media, in the military itself and, of course, among the families of those fighting in Iraq. Has Saddam’s fall made America safer? Was it worth all the deaths and casualties absent weapons of mass destruction? Does it matter whether Iraq emerges as a democracy, or is it enough to put “our bastard” in place of the one America toppled?
But the debate likely to have the most direct affect on the death toll is raging inside the cadre of officers commanding Army and Marine units inside Iraq. More than a year of aggressive patrols and counter-insurgency tactics have failed to slow the insurgency, and as a result an increasing number of officers are questioning the military’s core strategy: maintaining a high-profile in Iraq’s cities and villages in order to bring security, and ultimately, democracy to Iraq.
In fact, many officers are now saying the tactics adopted by American forces since Saddam’s regime fell last year are more suited to peacekeeping in regions where conflicts have already run their course than occupying a nation with an active insurgency. Aside from rare full out confrontations with enemy forces, like the battles raging right now with Shiite militants in Najaf, the emphasis on being a "presence" in Iraqi neighborhoods is being questioned.
“It seems to me we are provoking more than we are deterring,” says an officer with the 82nd Airborne Division who is serving in Iraq and asked not to be named. “We wind up getting shot at, and then we shoot back, and that means people who are just in the way wind up getting killed.”
A growing number of officers advocate pulling American troops back to a few large garrisons, from which they can launch missions in strength in support of Iraqi security forces. While not yet official policy – indeed it is fiercely opposed by some in the Pentagon and the Army -- the idea was lent some weight recently by Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, who told the House Armed Services Committee last month that “exposing more and more of your formation to this kind of warfare may not be the smartest thing to do. And we’re looking and working very hard to do that through the commanders over there.” <snip>
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