US war machine "nearly fell apart"

[Vympel]

Iraq

[Shinova]

The people at World War 2 could coordinate an invasion involving thousands of vessels, tens of thousands of troops, across a large stretch of land, at the same time, and managed to secure that beachead.


Jebus, I mean....hmmm.

[EmperorMing]

Serious WTF. For a military that an do much batter than this.

I wonder if the upper leadership *cough*Rumsfeld*cough* had something to do with this?

[Stofsk]

Yeah, it's fucked up - but the troops pulled through. The article does mention how the soldiers on the ground found their equipment to be unoperational, then improvised a solution. I don't know about you but that sounds like the soldiers I want in my army. Of course it doesn't help when their management is fucked in the head.

[Vympel]

The point about scavenging Iraqi artillery pieces for their own was really damn odd. It's either a slothful generalization, or referring to some mundane part that's common to most artillery designs, most of the Iraqi artillery park was Soviet (D-20s, D-30s and the like).

[Sarevok]

Good point. Russian self proplled artillery are diffrent from American Paladins. Their components would be totaly incomaptible.

[Iceberg]

Equipment shortages are nothing new to maneuver warfare. General Patton's famous charge through Germany nearly stalled for lack of gasoline at several points along the route.

[Vympel]

Yeah, but you'd expect an Army designed for war against the Warsaw Pact would have its act together for a fifth-rate shit-hole like Iraq. Then again, the WarPac was the one doing the attacking, and supply lines are always shorter when you're in such an entrenched position as Western Europe.

[Bertie Wooster]

I wonder if this will spur neo-conservatives in the U.S. to call for privatizing the military, since a government-run military can't seem to do an effecient job.

[Oberleutnant]

A large share of all of sorts of security work in Iraq is already handled by private security companies.

[Shaidar Haran]

I wonder if this will spur neo-conservatives in the U.S. to call for privatizing the military, since a government-run military can't seem to do an effecient job.

Do you realize how ridiculous that notion is? All but the most insane realize that some functions are better provided by the government.


* * *

As for the whole mess, I'd be willing to wager it has more to do with Pentagon screwups than actual problems with the military. Despite all the build up to the Iraq War it there seems to have been remarkably little preperartion.

[Bertie Wooster]

I wonder if this will spur neo-conservatives in the U.S. to call for privatizing the military, since a government-run military can't seem to do an effecient job.

Do you realize how ridiculous that notion is? All but the most insane realize that some functions are better provided by the government.

Since I was being semi-facetious in representing the neo-con opinion, I probably should have used the rolling eyes emoticon...

Still, I wouldn't be that surprised to hear if some conservatives react to this news by saying that private corporations would be better suited to conduct logistical operations in that theatre.

[Smiling Bandit]

Yeah, but you'd expect an Army designed for war against the Warsaw Pact would have its act together for a fifth-rate shit-hole like Iraq. Then again, the WarPac was the one doing the attacking, and supply lines are always shorter when you're in such an entrenched position as Western Europe.

The Army is designed for slow, set-peicebatlle engagements. Rumsfeld has been knocking head with them and forcing them to update their work and strategies.

But honestly, you will have lots of this sort of thing in every engagement. There's always some supply that's totally whacked, some intel that we just cannot get, some item the troops need and we can't get to them. It happens. Its always happened. Troops are trained to deal with it, which is really all you can do. Especially in an advance this rapid, there really was no way to move supplies fast enough. The DoD is working on an upgraded supply infrastructure, though.

[Smiling Bandit]

SHould have put this in

From the article:

Despite elaborate army planning for a final battle in Baghdad, including the mapping of every building and section of the city of 5.5 million people, commanders and intelligence analysts were at a loss to determine how the Iraqis would defend Baghdad, if at all.

Yeah. So what? There were any number of options the Iraqi's had and none of them they would tell us. We apparently did manage to bribe a lot of commanders to look the other way, but there are limits to our ability to detect troops in and around cities. The important thing is that we ready and able to evaluate our options and position and formulate tactics on the fly, without knowing how things would turn out.

More fools have lost more gains in military hstory because they came up with a bright plan and then had no idea what to do next.

[Axis Kast]

The lack of intelligence on Baghdad was not surprising; satellites aren't necessarily operating at their best in urban environments, and we didn't have anybody on the ground. That second part demands blame be put on the shoulders of U.S. politicans, but in their defense (even if this only goes a short way), cultivating a useful network of agents can take years.

As for artillery, there are two options:

(1) U.S. troops ran into pieces left over from 1991, some of which were from South Africa and thus could use NATO-standard munitions;

(2) U.S. troops ran into pieces left over from 1988, when Iraqi troops captured Iranian artillery pieces as they fled back into their own country. Because some Iranian weapons-acquisition links extended back to what was then Vietnam (which itself included former South Vietnam), some troops might have found, through the most tortured and lateral process in history, ammunition or something of that sort.

This second theory is really just for fun.

[Shaidar Haran]

Since I was being semi-facetious in representing the neo-con opinion, I probably should have used the rolling eyes emoticon...

Would have helped. Since there are liberals dumb enough to believe that conservatives would privatize the army...

Still, I wouldn't be that surprised to hear if some conservatives react to this news by saying that private corporations would be better suited to conduct logistical operations in that theatre.

Possibly.

[Master of Ossus]

The point about scavenging Iraqi artillery pieces for their own was really damn odd. It's either a slothful generalization, or referring to some mundane part that's common to most artillery designs, most of the Iraqi artillery park was Soviet (D-20s, D-30s and the like).

That is thoroughly bizarre. When I read that I wondered how that was even possible, since the parts shouldn't be too compatible.

In all honesty, I don't see much damning about that article. It generalizes so much that it's difficult to even discern what the report said. You're always going to have supply problems in such a fast, long-distance campaign, and I hardly see from the article that the US isn't doing a reasonable job there. The article could just be focusing on a few negative incidents that were discussed in the report, rather than on a multitude of good logistics that were employed.

[Axis Kast]

Privatization is already becoming a major problem against which more and more Army officials are railing.

In Iraq, positions that would once have been occupied by trained combat troops are now the province of special technical personnel in the pay of and contracted by businesses and in only temporary league with the military.

[Guardsman Bass]

I wonder if this will spur neo-conservatives in the U.S. to call for privatizing the military, since a government-run military can't seem to do an effecient job.

Do you realize how ridiculous that notion is? All but the most insane realize that some functions are better provided by the government.

Since I was being semi-facetious in representing the neo-con opinion, I probably should have used the rolling eyes emoticon...

Still, I wouldn't be that surprised to hear if some conservatives react to this news by saying that private corporations would be better suited to conduct logistical operations in that theatre.

I doubt it, because usually privately employed soldiers are called mercenaries- and if any U.S. citizen becomes a mercenary, they forfeit their American citizenship

[Axis Kast]

It's more a case of public, or civil, employment.

Through contract with the government, various companies agree to offer certain services in areas of high-risk, working alongside professional military personnel.

[Axis Kast]

From another message forum:

US's 'Private Army' Grows

In Colombia and around the world, civilians are doing work formerly done by the military.

by Rachel Van Dongen

BOGOTÁ, COLOMBIA - Flying over the vast jungle here, a joint
Colombian-American crew trolls for suspicious aircraft that could be smuggling tons of cocaine onto American soil.

When their radar locks onto a suspect plane, the crew attempts to make radio contact. If there is no response, they may fire warning shots in an attempt to get the suspect plane to land. Only as a last resort may the multinational crew seek permission from the ground to shoot the plane down.

Called the Air Bridge Denial Program, this dangerous work was abruptly terminated in April 2001 after a missionary from the United States and her baby daughter were mistakenly shot down during a similar operation in Peru. But two weeks ago, with new safeguards in place, the program was resurrected as a tool to staunch the flow of illegal drugs from the world's largest cocaine provider.

The US and Peru are in the early stages of restarting interdiction over Peruvian airspace as well. Although US officials insist that this is a Colombian-run program, two Americans will actively participate in each operation. One will be stationed at the
Colombian Defense Ministry helping to monitor planes, while the other will ride along in tracker aircraft.

Yet the Americans involved are not active military men. Instead, they are part of the unofficial army of private US contractors working in Colombia, doing everything from spraying coca fields to training a Colombian antikidnapping squad. It's a formula the US has repeated from here to Afghanistan to Iraq: employing civilians to do jobs historically carried out by the armed forces.

A 10-fold increase

Contractors are performing "the entire spectrum of military services," says Peter Singer, an analyst at the Brookings Institution in Washington and author of the new book, "Corporate Warriors," about the growth of the privatized military. He says US civilians in conflicts around the world do everything from handling mail services and feeding troops to training foreign troops and devising war games. Most are retired military personnel or former special forces.

In theory, US law mandates that no more than 400 civilian contractors can be on the ground in Colombia at any one time. But since US law also caps the number of US troops at 400, contractors are in even higher demand. Experts say that the US often hires nationals from places like Brazil and Central America who don't count toward the cap.
But this Andean nation is hardly the largest theater of operations for these soldiers of fortune.

Mr. Singer says nearly 10,000 private military contractors are currently working in Iraq, training a new Iraqi military, protecting the Baghdad and Basra airports, and feeding and housing US troops.
Several hundred contractors remain on the ground in Afghanistan as well, providing such services as security for President Hamid Karzai. In Liberia, the US recently hired Pacific Architects and Engineers to provide logistics for the Nigerian security force charged with keeping peace after the departure of President Charles Taylor.

Singer says the exponential growth in contractors during the 1990s - there have been nearly 10 times as many contractors used in the 2003 Iraq invasion as in the 1991 Persian Gulf War - is the result of several factors: the downsizing of the military, the fact that US troops are stretched thin because of their several global commitments, and a lack of planning by the Pentagon.

In places like Liberia and Colombia as well, the US is worried about "mission creep." Subjecting contractors instead of US military personnel to danger is far more politically viable as they often fly under the radar, with their costs and duties less known.

According to a report released by the US State Department earlier this year, there are 17 primary contracting companies working in Colombia, initially receiving some $3.5 billion.
The largest contracts have gone to companies like Lockheed Martin, ynCorp, and Northrop Grumman, but lesser-known firms like the Rendon Group (providing public relations support for the Ministry of Defense) and Science Applications International Corp. (assisting in imagery analysis) are also here.

Big companies such as DynCorp, in charge of piloting planes that spray coca crops, and Northrop Grumman's California Microwave Systems (CMS), which operates counternarcotics missions, did not release the number of employees involved in their operations. But the report counts at least 190 contractors employed by "Plan Colombia," a US-backed antinarcotics and antiterrorism program, and estimates the risk to most of their lives as "low."

At risk
But there is still risk. In February, a single-engine Cessna carrying four Defense Department contractors working for CMS, crashed in the jungle. Former US Air Force officer Thomas John Janis and a Colombian air force sergeant were instantly executed by th Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Three other Americans, Marc Gonsalves, Keith Stansell, and Tom Howes were abducted and have spent six months in captivity. The US government, according to the State Department report, has added "jungle survival training" to the requirements for these contractors.

Contractors may be involved in rescuing their comrades, as well as former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt, who has been held for 18 months by the FARC. A dramatic videotape was played Sunday on Colombian television where Ms. Betancourt called on the Colombian Army to rescue her and other hostages, and to reject FARC demands to exchange hostages for jailed rebels.

Another high-risk activity being performed by US contractors here is
fumigating coca crops. Since they are often forced to pilot low-flying missions over heavy guerrilla territory, the planes are frequent targets of FARC rebels who earn substantial money from the drug trade. Over the past year, US officials have said that spray planes, required to be trailed by search-and-rescue helicopters, have been fired at by rebels 70 times.

In March, a DynCorp plane piloted by an American contractor flew into a mountainside in the southern province of Narino, apparently due to mechanical failure rather than rebel gunfire, bringing the death toll of Americans in Colombia to five in 2003.

And just last week, another spray plane crashed, this time as a result of gunfire from unidentified assailants. But the American contractor pilot was promptly rescued by the search-and-rescue contingent.

Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor

[Iceberg]

Do you realize how ridiculous that notion is? All but the most insane realize that some functions are better provided by the government.

Since I was being semi-facetious in representing the neo-con opinion, I probably should have used the rolling eyes emoticon...

Still, I wouldn't be that surprised to hear if some conservatives react to this news by saying that private corporations would be better suited to conduct logistical operations in that theatre.

I doubt it, because usually privately employed soldiers are called mercenaries- and if any U.S. citizen becomes a mercenary, they forfeit their American citizenship

Not "mercenaries" - "foreign security consultant specialists." The fact that their corporate uniforms strongly resemble BDUs is only a coincidence. Just a coincidence...

[Aaron]

I found it really odd that the units were unable to communicate with each other. The American military has one of the most advanced radio communication systems in the world. And they couldn't talk over an area the size of Texas?

[HemlockGrey]

Going off on a tangent here, I find the privitization of the military extremely worrying. Wallensteins and Roger de Flors are not conducive to the efficiency of a national military, nor are they even insurance of that states' security. And, frankly, if its a private company, its going to be keeping its eyes on its profits to the exclusion of most else. Sure, we're not flat-out hiring mercenaries to lead us into battle, but I think its a nasty trend and would think highly of anyone who attempted to reverse it.

[Shinova]

Anything relating to war should not be in the hands of the private sector, IMO. Leave it up to the government, which has a country to worry about, not profits.