Phillip Carter's blog "Intel Dump" over that the Wapo (go figure!). Has a post about how this current tightening of the belt for the military in Iraq. By having to keep up the levels of the surge, Bush in another pointless presser about how he is working hard on Iraq told the press corp he was authorizing reducing the combat tour lengths to 7 months. Short tours are against COIN doctrine and the short tours in 'Nam were well known problem. Here is some of what Phil had to say:
Counterinsurgency requires detailed knowledge of the human, geographic, political and social terrain, and it takes time to acquire that knowledge. I'd say it became effective around the fifth or sixth month of my tour as a police adviser in Iraq. Arguably, advisers, commanders and troops operating outside the wire should serve longer tours in order to develop and cement their relationships, and capitalize on them.
But they can't -- there's a finite limit to the amount of combat that men and women can endure. So we must balance combat effectiveness, and the needs of an all-volunteer force (and its families), against the steep learning curve of counterinsurgency, which demands longer deployments. -- Intel Dump
Even when these guys eak out some minor, miniscule, tiny advantage they immediately think up some way to screw things up.
It's a real dilemma, and I'm not sure how to solve it without drastically increasing the size of the military or sharply curtailing the deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. -- Phil Carter, Intel Dump.Keep dreaming Phil you crazy diamond!
Oh, and the body count is back up to almost 2 a day again. Booyah!
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