TBR News October 27, 2006



The Voice of the White House

Washington D.C., October 26, 2006: “The most important issue being discussed in the White House, aside from Rove’s evil attacks on black Democrats, is the war in Iraq. The articles on the Falcon disaster drew at least a quarter million viewers and has not made your Mr. Harring a popular person at the Pentagon. As I understand it, a number of DoD employees were drafted into service, writing fake emails allegedly from Iraq denying the entire business but at this point, the public has gotten wise to such things as they are wising up to the federal blogger who always seem to have some sensational “news” to trumpet after some terrible government failure. Many of the more prominent bloggers take money for this sort of thing and can certainly be expected to accuse Harring of having sex with the mother of his own children. He did such a good job that I passed him some material on the activation of the National Guard that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld have cooked up for after the elections. I decided to let Mr. Harring have all of this because it is his field and I am now working on another matter.”

U.S. says more GIs may be needed in Iraq

October 25, 2006
AP -

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Two weeks before U.S. midterm elections, American officials unveiled a timeline Tuesday for Iraq's Shiite-led government to take specific steps to calm the world's most dangerous capital and said more U.S. troops might be needed to quell the bloodshed. U.S. officials previously said they were satisfied with troop levels and had expected to make significant reductions by year's end. But a surge in sectarian killings, which welled up this past summer, forced them to reconsider.

The Coming Storm: Activating the National Guard

October 26, 2006
by Brian Harring

It doesn’t take a Yale graduate to recognize that Iraq is a devastating mess. Sectarian war has broken out there between Sunni and Shiite, those not fighting each other are fighting the U.S., military casualties have tripled, there is wholesale theft on the part of government friendly contractors and the Administration’s approval ratings are on a steady downhill course.

The total inflexibility of the President will not permit him to cease and desist and the very idea of his walking away from his very own precious mess is a foolish one. Bush will, as he has said in public a number of times, never withdraw from Iraq as long as he is in office.

So, rather than negotiate, which he and his people are incapable of doing under any circumstances, it has been decided, at the highest levels, to smash any kind of sectarian or political opposition in Iraq and then impose a Bush peace at the point of a gun.

To do this, Bush must increase the troop levels in Iraq or fail and since he would never admit failure, he and his people have decided to double the troop levels and crush any opposition to the United States by naked force.

And where these troops coming from? Not from recruitment.

The Army is scraping the bottom of the societal barrel by taking in ex-cons, drug gang members, high school dropouts and anything warm that can point and shoot a gun. The manpower will come, without any question, from units already in place in the United States as cadre or as members of the reserves and, most especially, from the National Guard.

Forty-six American National Gusrd units are slated to be activated, by Presidential Order, suitably and fully equipped and shipped to Iraq where they will reinforce current units (which will not be withdrawn)

This is pursuant to the President’s plan “to build up sufficient troops to launch a massive attack on resistance units inside the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, to destroy any present and future capacity to launch attacks on Coalition troops and to impress the current Iraqi government that unity of purpose is vital and failure to achieve this unity can result in strong measures” on the part of the United States “to secure a firm democratic government, in practice as well as theory.”

All of this is not a good idea because the problem of supply is a disaster. Our troops have run out of weaponry which is not being produced at sufficient levels, have to deal with badly worn equipment that cannot function properly after three years of sandstorms, logistical problems with clothing and food and with the destruction of the bulk of the U.S. small-arms ammunition depot at Camp Falcon What these recalled National Guardsmen will have to shoot with, wear or eat is an enormous problem that does not faze Bush in the slightest because is not interested in it.

In addition to the activation of the following Guard units (after the elections, based on Republican retention of both houses of Congress) it is also planned to reactivate all military personnel who have served in either Afghanistan or Iraq within the past three years. There will be no deferments on this recall; marriage, family, education or work has no bearing on either the Guard activation or the recall of veterans.

This list, obtained with the good services of one of tbrnews writers, is a copy of the order for activation, now awaiting Bush’s signature and designed to be executed at the end of November. The recall order will be issued at the same time.

Just one signature from a madman and the lives of tens of thousands of Americans will be devastatingly disrupted but as Bush has two more years as President, the victims of his stupid pigheadedness will have to wait that long to be able to return to what passes for normal. Their wives might leave them, their jobs given to others or, more important, they will come home in rubber bags or spend the rest of their lives warehoused in vet’s hospitals with many body parts missing or useless but unless they mutiny, as is now happening, they have nothing to say.

The American public will soon have a great deal to say.

31st Armored Brigade (Separate)

31st Chemical Brigade

207th Infantry Group [AK ARNG]

1-207th Regiment (GS)

40th Infantry Division

121th Medevac Air Ambulance

260th MP Command

32d Army Air & Missile Defense - Det 1

48th Infantry Brigade (Mech)

294th Military Intelligence Detachment (CI)

1-294 Infantry (Light)

· Headquarters, Headquarters Company

· A Company

· B Company

· Headquarters, Service Detachment

· 29th Infantry Bde (Separate)

116th Armor Cavalry Brigade

66th Infantry Brigade

38th Infantry Division

2nd Brigade, 34th Infantry Division

130th Field Artillery Brigade

26th Brigade, 29th ID (Light)

· 272nd Chemical Co

Co A 118th Medical Bn

34th Infantry Division

184th Transportation Brigade

1387th QM Co (Water Supply)

140th Regiment

495th Transportation Battalion

1-221st Cavalry

150th Maint Co –

· 197th Field Artillery Bde

50th Brigade, 42nd ID

254th Regiment (Combat Arms)

30th Heavy Separate Brigade

113th Field Artillery Brigade

37th Armored Brigade

189th Regiment (RTI)

28th Infantry Division (Mechanized)

201st Evac Hospital

43rd Military Police Brigade

278th Armored Cavalry Regiment

300th MI Brigade (Linguist)

29th Infantry Division (Light)

2-19 Special Forces Group

213th Regiment (RTI)

This is one half of the activation order. Other Guard units will follow when the first activated units are equipped and in place.

The only people profiting from this charnel house square dance are Halliburton and coffin makers.

U.S. troops on active duty call for Iraq withdrawal

October 25, 2006
Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More than 200 active duty U.S. armed service members, fed up with the war in Iraq, have joined an unusual protest calling for withdrawal of U.S. troops from the country, organizers said on Wednesday.

The campaign, called the Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq, is the first of its kind in the Iraq war and takes advantage of Defense Department rules allowing active duty troops to express personal opinions to members of Congress without fear of retaliation, organizers said.

"As a patriotic American proud to serve the nation in uniform, I respectfully urge my political leaders in Congress to support the prompt withdrawal of all American military forces and bases from Iraq," states the appeal posted on the campaign's Web site at www.appealforredress.org.

"Staying in Iraq will not work and is not worth the price. It is time for U.S. troops to come home," it adds.

The Web site allows service members to sign the appeal that will be presented to members of Congress. Organizers said the number of signatories has climbed from 65 to 219 since the appeal was posted a few days ago and Wednesday when it was publicly launched. There are 140,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Active duty service members are restricted in expressing personal views publicly. But rules governed by the Military Whistleblower Protection Act give them the right to speak to a member of Congress respectfully while off-duty and out of uniform, making clear they do not speak for the military.

In a conference call with reporters, a sailor, a Marine and a soldier who had served in the Iraq operation said American troops there have increasingly had difficulty seeing the purpose of lengthy and repeated tours of duty since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

Their misgivings have intensified this year as the country has edged toward civil war, they said.

"The real grievances are: Why are we in Iraq if the weapons of mass destruction are not found, if the links to al Qaeda are not substantiated," said Marine Sgt. Liam Madden of Rockingham, Vermont, who was in Iraq from September 2004 to February 2005 and is based at Quantico, Virginia.

"The occupation is perpetuating more violence," he said. "It's costing way too many Iraqi civilian and American service member lives while it brings us no benefit."

The campaign's sponsoring committee includes the activist groups Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak Out.

Navy Seaman Jonathan Hutto of Atlanta, stationed at Norfolk, Virginia and the first service member to join the campaign, said a similar appeal during the Vietnam War drew support from over 250,000 active duty service members in the early 1970s.

Military Repair Work Booms

'Reset' Contractors Reap a Bonanza Amid Effect of Iraqi Conflict

October 23, 2006
by Jonathan Karp
Wall Street Journal

ANNISTON, Ala. -- The sprawling Army depot here teems with war-torn tanks and armored vehicles. Inside red-brick buildings, mechanics work six days a week to cut the backlog, repairing and upgrading the equipment so that it can be sent back to Iraq.

More than three years of operations in Iraq have strained budgets and resources, leaving the Army scrounging for money to develop a new generation of high-tech weapons. But for now it is flush with funds to patch up existing equipment, and defense contractors are getting a bigger share of this booming business, which is known as "reset." Much of the Army's work here, for instance, relies on engineering and management expertise provided by General Dynamics Corp. and BAE Systems PLC.

Congress recently approved $17.1 billion to repair, upgrade and replace Army vehicles, and a further $5.8 billion for Marine equipment in the current fiscal year. The Army portion alone is $4 billion more than the administration's original budget request for fiscal 2007, and will require government depots to triple their workload, by revenue, compared with fiscal 2006.

The bulk of Army reset money is slated to go to private industry. Some $5 billion will be used to buy replacement vehicles, and $5.3 billion will flow to contractors for maintenance work, according to Pentagon estimates. The biggest recipients are likely to be General Dynamics, which makes the Abrams tank and the Stryker armored vehicle; BAE, which makes the Bradley fighting vehicle; and AM General LLC and Armor Holdings Inc. for work on Humvees.

Such work is likely to be reflected not only in third-quarter earnings reports but for the foreseeable future. That's because even if war budgets, known as supplemental funding, begin to decline, "the portion for reset and procurement is likely to rise," says David Strauss, a defense analyst at UBS Investment Research. Compared with the regular Pentagon budget, reset funding is small, but it provides steady revenue for companies and could help fend off an expected slow down in weapons spending. "It's a good business, and it comforts investors that this kind of money will be out there for a few more years," he says.

Defense companies have positioned themselves for a surge in maintenance business by forging partnerships with the military depots, instead of competing against them as they once did. At the same time, the depots have introduced lean-manufacturing practices to become more efficient. The biggest constraint in clearing the recent backlog of battered vehicles hasn't been factory space or trained workers, but rather funding, depot officials say.

Anniston Army Depot illustrates how the partnership model helps both government and industry. On a recent Saturday, building No. 400 was abuzz with more than 500 people working over sand-crusted heavy armored vehicles. Seventy-ton tanks stood stripped of their turrets, tread and engines, which were taken to other buildings for work. Chassis of tanks and other armored vehicles ready for reassembly had "OK" chalked in repaired areas.

Though no private contractors were in the building, their contributions were evident: The spare parts arranged neatly at work stations were provided by privately managed supply chains. The companies that make the vehicles also are contracted to analyze the wear or battle damage, prescribe a fix and, in the case of upgrades, guarantee the work. "It's the engineering and provisioning of material that really consume a lot of the time, effort and dollars," says Jack Cline, deputy to the commander at the Anniston depot. "The touch labor is the easy piece."

Outsourcing has freed up resources to help the depots deal with the heavy toll on military gear. Anniston has quadrupled its vehicle output since the Iraq war started, says Charles Williams, director of production. Current Pentagon plans call for spending $1 billion to overhaul or upgrade 387 tanks this fiscal year, meaning Anniston -- which will take a big share of that work -- will have to ramp up again, potentially having to double output. Anniston currently processes between 15 and 23 tanks a month.

Across town, BAE raced to build a $13 million factory last year to overhaul other armored vehicles. BAE, which bought vehicle maker United Defense Industries Inc. in 2005, has a big reset business for its Bradley vehicles at Red River depot in Texas, but the Anniston bet also is paying off in multimillion-dollar contracts. Robert Houston, a BAE vice president in Anniston, says the expansion has transformed the company's local business. Its number of employees has doubled to some 800, and whereas the focus used to be making steel tracks for armored vehicles, "now 70% to 80% of our work is upgrading vehicles," he says.

BAE's strategy depends on winning follow-on contracts, and Wall Street analysts believe the reset bonanza has room to run. Army leaders foresee a need for at least $13 billion in annual reset spending for fiscal 2008 and 2009.

Write to Jonathan Karp at jonathan.karp@wsj.com