By Col.
DAN SMITH
“When America puts our troops in combat, I believe they
deserve the best training, the best equipment, the full support
of our government.”
So declaimed President George Bush at a campaign rally earlier
this month in Manchester, New Hampshire, 10 months after the senior
ground commander in Iraq wrote to the Pentagon that U.S. forces
in Iraq were “struggling just to maintain . . . relatively
low readiness rates” (Washington Post, October 18, 2004).
The letter from Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, dated December
4, 2003, addressed key combat systems such as tanks, infantry
fighting vehicles, and helicopters. Spare parts were on back-order
for as long as 40 days for these critical equipment lines. Moreover,
Sanchez noted that U.S. forces were still short 36,000 sets of
body armor.
The Pentagon says the shortages, caused by greater than expected
intensity of combat operations against Iraqi insurgents and disruption
of supply routes from improvised explosive devices (IEDs), have
been corrected. But to the extent that the U.S. fought another
war – shorter but of higher intensity – in the same
area just 12 years ago, the scope of the shortages suggests a
failure of adequate logistics planning.
Now there is further evidence that not everything has been “corrected,”
as claimed by the Pentagon. Eighteen soldiers from the 343rd Quartermaster
Company, a reserve unit that has seen nine months of duty in-country,
refused to undertake a fuel re-supply mission because their vehicles
were still unarmored and the convoy had not been allocated an
armed escort. Unit members also cited poor maintenance and the
absence of radios for communicating with their headquarters.
Given the billions the Pentagon annually spends and the President’s
pledge, is there an explanation for the conditions that finally
impelled these soldiers to refuse an order?
First, it’s important to know that, as with many reserve
unitsthat have been sent to Iraq, this platoon of the 343rd Quartermaster
Company is not comprised of just young, inexperienced, first term
enlistees. The platoon sergeant is a 24-year veteran who served
in the first Gulf War. And as already noted, the unit has nine
months combat experience in Iraq – a fact that probably
tipped the balance on October 13, 2004.
For decades, National Guard and reserve units have been on the
second tier (or lower) with regard to equipment. Since the services
cannot afford to equip the entire force with every new piece of
equipment procured, a “cascade” policy is used. When
a new or improved line of tanks, artillery, or trucks reaches
a high priority (active duty or “enhanced” reserve)
unit, that unit’s equipment is evaluated, refurbished, and
then handed off to lower priority (late-deploying or regular reserve)
units where the cascade process is repeated over and over all
the way to war reserve stockpiles.
The cascade policy is sensible as long as the “normal”
condition is peace or there is enough time and money to increase
production and distribute modernized equipment to units prior
to their commitment to combat. The policy becomes dysfunctional
when the units called up to fight are ones whose deployment was
never (or almost never) contemplated by logistics planners.
But in refusing an order, these 18 soldiers risk disciplinary
action for insubordination, refusing to obey a direct, lawful
order, even cowardice. Their sergeant, in keeping with his duty
to look after the welfare of those under his command, had expressed
his concerns about the state of the unit’s equipment to
his officers. Whether they in turn took action presumably will
come out in the investigation into the incident ordered by high-level
commanders in Iraq.
As the public has learned over the past 18 months, virtually all
of Iraq is a battle site sooner or later. Roads are particularly
dangerous due to IEDs, which can be buried anywhere and detonated
by remote control. U.S. commanders in Baghdad estimate that there
may be as many as 100 IEDs still buried along streets in the capital’s
Sadr city, which effectively renders certain areas “no-go”
ones for U.S. and Iraqi security forces.
Given the Pentagon’s admission of continuing supply problems,
the total stand-down of the 343rd Quartermaster Company for a
thorough maintenance review, and the quantity of anecdotal stories
of families buying and shipping body armor and other equipment
to relatives in the combat zone, the military would do well to
find any reason to forego disciplinary action against these soldiers.
On first glance, refusing to obey a lawful order when in combat
– particularly in an all-volunteer force – just because
war presents dangers, is grounds for disciplinary action. But
soldiers have a right to be properly trained, led, and equipped
by those who send them into battle, at least to the extent that
they have a reasonable chance to succeed in carrying out assigned
missions. It is as unconscionable to send ill-prepared soldiers
into battle as it can be to commit the nation to war – particularly
when all other means to settle a dispute have not been completely
exhausted.
Duty, that is to say, is a two-way street. In a democracy, citizens
who become soldiers do not sign up to commit suicide – even
in an all-volunteer army.
Col.
Dan Smith can be reached at: dan@fcnl.org