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December 20, 2006
 
Abercrombie: "Army and Marine Corps Have Been Badly-Used and Overdeployed" 

Incoming Armed Services Subcommittee Chairman Opposes Additional Reserve-National Guard Call-ups
 
Washington, DC -- “President Bush said today he wants to increase the size of our military because of the strain of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.  It is breathtaking that it took the President three and a half years to reach that conclusion. Congress has urged and authorized a larger Army and Marine Corps for several years, but were totally ignored by former Secretary Rumsfeld and the White House.  Now, with a failed policy in Iraq and no good way out; when we are faced with the prospect of a broken force—an Army and Marine Corps that have been badly used and overdeployed —the Administration wants more troops.

 

I support increasing the size, or endstrength, of our armed forces.  But it is essential that everyone understands: this is not a solution to the quagmire in Iraq.  If we start recruiting troops tomorrow, it would take many months, even years, before they were fully trained, equipped and prepared to augment our current forces.

 

The only military available to increase the size of our force in Iraq in the short term are the reserves and National Guard.  I strongly oppose additional call-ups.

 

  1. Sending more troops to Iraq would simply reinforce the failure of the current strategy.  Our military commanders have said that more troops would do little or nothing to improve the chances for an end to the Sunni-Shiite civil war.
  2. No mission has been defined for additional troops.  It is tragically clear that the military's current mission is not working.  Sending more people into the hornets' nest will do nothing to improve the situation.
  3. Several of our top commanders on the ground have said that more U.S. troops would only inflame the insurgency and provide more targets for militias, death squads and roadside bombs.
  4. Most reserve and National Guard companies and battalions have already been deployed.  Without changing Defense Department policy, there are not enough left to make any difference.  We would wind up with outfits in urban combat that had been cobbled-together and never trained or functioned as a unit.

 

My responsibility as Chairman of the House Armed Services Air-Land Subcommittee will be to do everything I can to make our country safer, maintain a strong national defense and make sure our troops have everything they need to do their jobs.  Sending our National Guard and reserve forces for endless tours in an endless civil war in will do nothing to achieve these goals.

 

  

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