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March 20, 2007
Pg. 1
Army Brigade Finds Itself Stretched Thin
By David S. Cloud
FORT POLK, La., March 14 - For decades, the Army has kept a brigade of
the 82nd Airborne Division on round-the-clock alert, poised to respond
to a crisis anywhere in 18 to 72 hours.
Today, the so-called ready brigade is no longer so ready. Its soldiers
are not fully trained, much of its equipment is elsewhere, and for the
past two weeks the unit has been far from the cargo aircraft it would
need in an emergency.
Instead of waiting on standby, the First Brigade of the 82nd Airborne is
deep in the swampy backwoods of this vast Army training installation,
preparing to go to Iraq. Army officials concede that the unit is not
capable of getting at least an initial force of several hundred to a war
zone within 18 hours, a standard once considered inviolate.
The declining readiness of the brigade is just one measure of the toll
that four years in Iraq - and more than five years in Afghanistan - have
taken on the United States military. Since President Bush ordered
reinforcements to Iraq and Afghanistan in January, roughly half of the
Army's 43 active-duty combat brigades are now deployed overseas, Army
officials said. A brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.
Pentagon officials worry that among the just over 20 Army brigades left
in the United States or at Army bases in Europe and Asia, none has
enough equipment and manpower to be sent quickly into combat, except for
an armored unit stationed permanently in South Korea, several senior
Army officers said.
"We are fully committed right now," said Col. Charles Hardy of the
Forces Command, which oversees Army training and equipping of troops to
be sent overseas. "If we had a fully trained-up brigade, hell, it'd be
the next one to deploy."
The 82nd recently canceled its annual Memorial Day parade because most
of its 17,000 soldiers are overseas. When the First Brigade, which got
the rotating assignment as the ready brigade in December, leaves for
Iraq over the summer, the 101st Airborne Division, at Fort Campbell,
Ky., will take over responsibility for the ready brigade. But its
soldiers are preparing to go to Iraq this year as well.
testimony on March 15 that with the demands of Iraq and Afghanistan, the
Army does not have the time or the resources to prepare for most of the
other missions it could potentially face.]
Military officials say that the United States, which has more than two
million personnel in active and reserve armed forces, has a
combat-tested force that could still emerge victorious if another major
conflict arose. But the response would be slower, with more casualties,
and would have to rely heavily on the Navy and Air Force, they said.
Despite tensions with Iran and North Korea, another crisis requiring
troops does not appear imminent.
If ground forces were needed urgently, Army commanders said they could
draw units quickly from Iraq and send them wherever they might be
needed, rather than relying solely on the ready brigade to provide a
fast reaction force.
The Pentagon can also draw on 28 combat brigades in the reserves,
several of which the military is making plans to mobilize later this
year or early next to relieve some of the strain. But those units face
even deeper problems than the active duty brigades because of equipment
and training shortfalls.
Altogether, Army officials said 23 brigades, including one National
Guard brigade, are now deployed overseas. Once the reinforcements called
for by the White House are in place, 17 Army combat brigades will be in
Iraq and two in Afghanistan, Army officials said, along with four more
deployed in various locations, including as peacekeepers in the Sinai
desert.
In effect, the Army has become a "just in time" organization: every
combat brigade that finishes training is sent back to Iraq or
Afghanistan almost immediately. Equipment vital for protecting troops,
like armored vehicles, roadside bomb jammers and night vision goggles,
is rushed to Iraq as quickly as it is made, officials say.
The 2007 Pentagon budget includes $17.1 billion to reset Army equipment,
with a separate fund of $13.9 billion in emergency funds to replace or
repair gear damaged in combat. Even so, units at home preparing to
deploy are facing equipment shortages and have all but given up
preparing for anything other than their next tour in Iraq or
Afghanistan.
<"We do have shortages in the nondeployed forces," General Cody conceded[br />in his unusually candid testimony to Congress. There were not enough
vehicles, radios and night vision gear, and there are "spot shortages"
in weapons, he said, noting that those units constituted the nation's
strategic reserve.]
Later this year, the Army will probably be forced to send its first
brigades back to Iraq with less than a year at home resting and
training, senior Pentagon officials said. Another alternative, they
said, would be to lengthen the tours in Iraq to 18 months from a year.
Army officials said no soldiers were sent overseas without adequate
training and equipment. And they point to continued strong recruiting
and retention numbers as proof that morale remains high.
But after insisting for years that one year at home is a minimum amount
of time necessary to prepare a unit to conduct counterinsurgency
operations, commanders now say that, by speeding up equipment overhauls
and compressing training, they can do the job in 10 months or less.
Over time, the shortened training schedules will inevitably begin to
affect the performance of troops in the field, some officers said.
Senior Pentagon officials worry about those deepening strains. Gen.
Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, sent a secret report
to Congress last month that upgraded from "moderate" to "significant"
the risk of failing in its mission that the military faces this year in
carrying out tasks in Iraq, Afghanistan and any other hot spots that
might emerge.
<"We have the best counterinsurgency army in the world, but they're not[br />trained for full-spectrum operations," General Cody said in his
testimony.]
The Marines, which are also heavily engaged in Iraq, are facing similar
strains.
Fort Polk is one of the last stops many combat units make before
deploying to Iraq. During the cold war, the installation trained
soldiers to fight the Soviets in Europe. The 82nd, based in Fort Bragg,
N. C., used to parachute into Louisiana to keep its airborne skills
sharp, but that tradition has been abandoned.
Now, even though the terrain bears little resemblance to Iraq's
desertlike conditions, the emphasis is solely on preparing infantry
units to handle the chaotic sectarian conflict and random violence they
are likely to encounter there.
Within the 82nd's current First Brigade, about 4 soldiers in 10 have
done previous tours in Iraq, making preparations to go back easier, said
Col. Charles Flynn, the brigade commander. Last week, the brigade was
spread out throughout the wooded training area at Fort Polk, in an
exercise that featured simulations of the kind of Iraqi villages and
roadside bomb attacks that many soldiers had actually experienced in
previous deployments.
But almost all are in new jobs. Lt. Col. Michael Iacobucci, now a
battalion commander, had served as a battalion executive officer in the
82nd when it was in Iraq in 2003. After coming home, Colonel Iacobucci,
who is from Albany, had moved with his family to Australia as part of a
three-year military exchange program.
He rejoined the 82nd in August, eager to go back to Iraq, he said while
driving in a Humvee through the mock Iraqi villages. Before units were
actually preparing to go into combat, their performance at Fort Polk
would be graded only when the two-week exercise was over, said Lt. Col.
Arthur Kandarian, a trainer. Now, the lessons are frequently spelled out
as they happen, to get soldiers ready faster.
"It was treated as more of a test, and it was a closed-book test," he
explained. "Now it's a coaching situation because we're in a war."
Training is being compressed at almost every stage, Army officers said.
Soldiers who before 2003 spent months in specialized courses and on
firing ranges now take compressed classes taught by so-called mobile
training teams and hone their weapons proficiency on simulators, Army
officers said.
"The biggest problem I'm seeing is unfamiliarity with equipment," said
Capt. Christian Durham, an instructor at Fort Polk, who sees all the
units that rotate through before heading to Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Army is struggling just to keep up with current troop
demands. The five additional combat brigades ordered by President Bush
in January will raise the total American force level in Iraq to 160,000
troops, including combat and support troops, by June. That has forced
the Army to take steps to supply troops faster to maintain the higher
force levels.
Two Army brigades, one at Fort Riley, Kan., and another at Ft. Hood,
Tex., that were not scheduled to return to the combat rotation until
2008 were ordered in December to speed up preparations so they will be
ready to deploy by October, said Lt. Col. Christian Kubik, a spokesman
for the First Infantry Division.
The Pentagon also informed the 172nd Stryker Brigade, which returned in
December from a 16-month tour in Iraq, that it had to be ready for
possible deployment between October and December, according to Maj.
Michael Blankartz, a brigade spokesman.
Normally, a brigade is given half a year to overhaul its equipment, but
the Alaska brigade, now part of the 25th Infantry Division, has only
four months, he said. The timetable for preparing its troops is even
more accelerated.
Roughly two-thirds of the brigade's 3,300 soldiers are rotating to other
units around the Army, as is customary after a deployment, Major
Blankartz said. Their replacements are not scheduled to arrive until
July and August, he said, leaving only one or two months before the Army
wants the brigade prepared.
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