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Governors Warn of Troop Buildup's Impact on Guard    [

    Two Army Units Will Forgo Desert Training
    By Robert Burns
    The Associated Press

    Tuesday 27 February 2007

    Rushed by President Bush's decision to reinforce Baghdad with thousands more U.S. troops, two Army combat brigades are skipping their usual session at the Army's premier training range in California and instead are making final preparations at their home bases.

    Some in Congress and others outside the Army are beginning to question the switch, which is not widely known. They wonder whether it means the Army is cutting corners in preparing soldiers for combat, since they are forgoing training in a desert setting that was designed specially to prepare them for the challenges of Iraq.

    Army officials say the two brigades will be as ready as any others that deploy to Iraq, even though they will not have the benefit of training in counterinsurgency tactics at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., which has been outfitted to simulate conditions in Iraq for units that are heading there on yearlong tours.

    Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Monday she is concerned about the "less-than-ideal training situation" for the 4th Stryker Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, which is based in her state and is one of the two brigades that did its final training at home. That brigade is to go to Iraq in April, one month earlier than planned.

    The other is the 2nd Brigade of the 3rd Infantry Division, based at Fort Stewart, Ga., which is due to go in May for its third combat tour since the war began in 2003. Instead of going to the National Training Center first, it imported personnel and equipment - even Toyota pickups like those used by Iraqi insurgents - from the training center at Fort Irwin for two weeks of final rehearsals that begin Wednesday.

    A spokesman for the brigade, Lt. Col. Randy Martin, said the soldiers lose nothing by the switch, while shaving about two weeks off their pre-deployment training schedule.

    "It's realistic training," he said. "I don't think that anyone would say readiness is affected" negatively. He noted that another brigade from his division underwent similar home-station training before it deployed in January.

    "The preferred method is to have them come here," a spokesman at the National Training Center, John Wagstaffe, said in a telephone interview Monday. The main things that cannot be replicated in a home station exercise are the vast spaces of the National Training Center, which is located in the Mojave Desert, and the weather and other environmental conditions that so closely resemble much of Iraq, Wagstaffe said.

    "Your weapon won't jam from sand at Fort Stewart," he said.

    Murray said she does not doubt the ability of soldiers to adapt.

    "They have done everything we have asked of them," she said. "However, I am deeply troubled by the president's escalation plan and am committed to questioning the new demands it places on service members."

    On a visit to the brigade's home station at Fort Lewis last week, Murray asked the top commander there, Lt. Gen. James Dubik, whether the soldiers' preparation for Iraq was adequate without going to the National Training Center, according to a Fort Lewis spokesman, Lt. Col. Dan Williams, who said he attended Dubik's meeting with Murray.

    Dubik assured her it was, William said. The general told her he was confident "that they were ready to go" to Iraq even if they had not had 1,300 soldiers imported from the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk to play the role of Iraqi insurgents and civilians and to observe and control the mission rehearsal exercise.

    "They went through all the things they know they're going to do in Iraq," Williams said.

    Some outside observers say it was inevitable that, in a pinch, the Army would tinker with training.

    "It tracks with what we should expect when we hurry the units up in their last three months" before a deployment, said Kevin Ryan, a retired brigadier general and former Army planner who is now at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Army commanders are compelled to make "economies," he added, when an accelerated deployment plan forces them to compress some aspects of training.

    Ryan said he doubts this approach will significantly detract from the soldiers' degree of preparation for Iraq.

    "'Adequate' is probably a good description of what that training is," he said. "It's not the premier kind of situation that commanders would prefer, but it is adequate." Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute, a think tank, said, "This shouldn't have a decisive impact, although it carries a modicum of risk."

    The two units that are skipping their National Training Center sessions are among five Army brigades that are being dispatched to Baghdad on an sped-up schedule as the centerpiece of Bush's new approach to stabilizing Iraq.

    The first to go, in January, was an 82nd Airborne brigade specially designated for short-notice deployments; it did no full-scale final exercise before deploying to Kuwait and then into Iraq.

    The next two, from Fort Benning, Ga., and Fort Riley, Kan., did their final training sessions at the National Training Center. The unit from Fort Riley is entering Iraq now and the other is due to arrive in March.

 

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    Governors Warn of Troop Buildup's Impact on Guard
    By Molly Hennessy-Fiske
    The Los Angeles Times

    Sunday 25 February 2007

Both Republicans and Democrats say Bush's Iraq plan will tax already strained units.

    Washington - Republican and Democratic governors meeting here Saturday warned that President Bush's "surge" of additional troops to Iraq would put added pressure on National Guard units already stretched to their limits.

    "We the governors rely on the Guard to respond to natural disasters, a pandemic or terrorist attack," said North Carolina Gov. Michael F. Easley, a Democrat. "Currently, we don't have the manpower or the equipment to perform that dual role" of responding to both state and federal needs.

    The Pentagon last week announced plans to send 14,000 National Guard members to Iraq next year as support for the 21,500 troops to be deployed under Bush's plan. The announcement came on the heels of a change in Pentagon policy to deploy Guard troops more frequently but to limit tours to a year; the average now is 18 months.

    Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, said the federal government must follow through on its pledge to replace equipment taken by Guard troops to Iraq.

    "Those promises need to be kept," Pawlenty said. "We'll be able to test that, because we have a significant number coming back this summer. We'll be able to see if the equipment comes back."

    The governors' willingness to challenge the buildup reflects overall impatience with Washington, which has inspired a slew of state initiatives to tackle such issues as global warming, energy efficiency and healthcare.

    Eighty-eight percent of stateside Army National Guard units are "very poorly equipped," with less than half of what they need to respond to a domestic crisis, Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum testified a few weeks ago to the independent Commission on the National Guard and Reserves.

    Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau, coordinates between the states and the Pentagon.

    He said 45% of Air National Guard units lacked the necessary equipment to deploy.

    Last month, National Guard officials notified commanders in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio that their combat brigades - each about 3,500 strong - might be the first to return to Iraq under the new guidelines, redeploying between January and July of next year. All four states sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq in 2004. Under the old rules, Oklahoma was not scheduled to be called on again until 2010; the other three states, 2009.

    In interviews, National Guard officials in Arkansas, Indiana and Oklahoma said their units were short on rifles and other basic equipment.

    "We are hurting in equipment nationally, Guard-wide," said Lt. Col. Deedra Thombleson of the Indiana National Guard.

    Governors, in town for a National Governors Assn. meeting, plan to raise the issue Monday at a White House session with Bush. Guard officials plan to talk to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates about it Tuesday.

    "We will do all that we can to support the effort, but getting the equipment to do that will be a challenge," said Maj. Gen. Roger Lempke, head of the Nebraska National Guard and president of the Adjutants General Assn. of the United States.

    Equipping the Guard is of particular concern in states such as California and Florida, where troops are routinely called to respond to natural disasters like hurricanes and forest fires.

    "We want to protect our troops and make sure they have what they need to deal with natural disasters," said Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, a Republican.

    Gov. Easley of North Carolina called National Guard equipment levels across the country "putridly inadequate."

    And without adequate equipment, he said, the National Guard's role in the buildup would amount to "a squandered mobilization."

    With plans to increase the frequency of Guard deployments - now once every six years - North Dakota Gov. John Hoeven, a Republican, said that getting enough troops for a second rotation in Iraq was "a concern."

    The governors association president, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who has advocated sending National Guard troops to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, said the Guard was "being stretched" to respond to the buildup.

    California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, is reviewing the plans with his National Guard leadership to assess the impact on the state. He has advocated doing what's necessary to ensure success in Iraq but said he would not support a policy jeopardizing California's safety.