Posted by
NOTLEGALROADKILLYET on Thursday, February 15, 2007 11:14:01 AM
The Democrat party, in coordination with the peace movement, thinks it has devised a way to end the war in defeat and avoid blame for doing so. If you haven't read my previous essay, this one won't make a lot of sense to you, so
take a quick look.
If I were the Secretary of Defense, and I saw this happening, I would take the following steps:
1. I would modify the readiness reporting system so that a unit could be reported up the chain as ready for deployment in Iraq even when it is not ready to do its conventional war mission. If Murtha wants to play bureaucratic games, it is pretty easy to out bureaucrat him. If he objected to this ploy, and he would, he would lose his political cover.
2. I would make this gambit as expensive as possible for the Democrats in terms of justifying the need for more military equipment and manpower. What Murtha is really saying is that the military simply isn't large enough to fight to win in Iraq. The obvious solution is to ask Congress triple the size of the Regular Army and the Marines over the next two years.
The Tables of Organization and Equipment of this expansion need not, and should not match the current TO&E of the army. Instead, light battalions designed specifically to fight the insurgency in Iraq should be organized and deployed. These light battalions would be equipped with light weapons and lightly armored vehicles.
In terms of equipment, this is a cheap and easily doable solution. It would be expensive in payroll. That brings up the question of whether the anti-military members of the Democrat party would support it. History suggests that they would not. If history is prologue, the party might find itself once again tagged as the "weak on defense" party for making rules that can't be enforced without significant expenditures and then refusing to make the expenditures.
3. Of course, Murtha is also admitting that the military simply doesn't have enough equipment to meet its training needs in the United Stares and at the same time leave equipment in Iraq. If I were the Secretary of Defense, I would be pounding my fist on Murtha's desk for duplicate sets of equipment. After all, that is what he seems to want to happen.
I don't know if these options are being considered, but they are a quick and effective counter to Murtha's plan.