Bigger Army
By I give up. I’ll concede that I really don’t understand why the adminstration can’t expand the size of the Army to meet its needs in Iraq and elsewhere. This report suggests some problems, but they seem to me essentially soluble.
It’s not terribly difficult to increase the size of US Army. We’ve done it before. Training suffers somewhat, but that’s less important than the need to put boots on the ground in Iraq. Moreover, while I’m less opposed to the idea of a draft than my blogmates, we don’t really need one to expand current force size. It seems to me that an increase in pay and benefits would go a long way to increasing military manpower. These are traditional incentive packages, and can’t be all that difficult to construct and apply. Moreover, it’s not as if they’ll break the bank, especially considering how much we already spend on defense. Increasing pay and benefits would probably help both recruiting and retention rates.
Why not? Right now it would be politically embarrasing for the administration, especially as they keep claiming that the generals have all the boots that they need or want. Admitting that more troops were needed would place the blame for the failure of the occupation squarely on the shoulders of the administration. Moreover, creating a larger Army to deal with the occupation would work counter to some of the goals of invading Iraq in the first place. The Iraq invasion has a large reputational component; we need to invade Iraq to prove that we’re willing and able to invade countries like Iraq. Sending more troops this late in the game would give away the show, as if other countries don’t already understand that we’re tied down. Increases in troop strength and pay have never been particularly popular among lobbyists or on Capitol Hill, as spending on troops doesn’t really bring much pork home.
Finally, it might just not work. I don’t know; maybe we’ve hit the bottom or very close to the bottom of the pool of individuals who will voluntarily join the military. Maybe there are other problems. It’s a solution that seems so obvious that there must be something wrong with it.
Incidentally, see Josh Marshall’s post today on the state of the war. It is impossible to overstate the degree to which the media has failed in the reporting of the Iraq War.