GEAR LACK ALMOST STOPPED IRAQ OPS

“The top U.S. com­man­der in Iraq com­plained to the Pentagon last win­ter that his sup­ply sit­u­a­tion was so poor that it threat­ened Army troops’ abil­ity to fight,” the Washington Post’s Tom Ricks reports.

The lack of key spare parts for gear vital to com­bat oper­a­tions, such as tanks and heli­copters, was caus­ing prob­lems so severe, Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez wrote in a let­ter to top Army offi­cials, that “I can­not con­tinue to sup­port sus­tained com­bat oper­a­tions with rates this low.“
Senior Army offi­cials said that most of Sanchez’s con­cerns have been addressed in recent months but that they con­tinue to keep a close eye on the prob­lems he iden­ti­fied. The sit­u­a­tion is “sub­stan­tially bet­ter” now, said Gary Motsek, deputy direc­tor of oper­a­tions for the Army Materiel Command.
Sanchez, who was the senior com­man­der on the ground in Iraq from the sum­mer of 2003 until the sum­mer of 2004, said in his let­ter that Army units in Iraq were “strug­gling just to main­tain… rel­a­tively low readi­ness rates” on key com­bat sys­tems, such as M-​​1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Fighting Vehicles, anti-​​mortar radars and Black Hawk heli­copters.
He also said units were wait­ing an aver­age of 40 days for crit­i­cal spare parts, which he noted was almost three times the Army’s aver­age. In some Army sup­ply depots in Iraq, 40 per­cent of crit­i­cal parts were at “zero bal­ance,” mean­ing they were absent from depot shelves.

THERE’S MORE: As we all know by now, the U.S. mil­iary is run­ning short on per­son­nel for Iraq, too — so short, they’ve decided to deploy their “OPFOR,” or oppos­ing force, used to test other units’ met­tle. That’s the equiv­a­lent of “eat­ing your seed corn,” Phil Carter says.

This unit is respon­si­ble for train­ing other units and rais­ing their level of exper­tise and com­bat readi­ness. The 11th ACR is being replaced by a National Guard unit. That’s like replac­ing the Dodgers with a high school base­ball team. Sure, they can both play base­ball and wear the uni­form but one is a whole lot more pro­fi­cient and expe­ri­enced at its job. The OPFOR has a rep­u­ta­tion as a tough enemy, and that’s a good thing because it forces units train­ing at the NTC [Army National Training Center] to become bet­ter them­selves. By replac­ing this unit with National Guard troops, the Army has hurt its abil­ity to pro­duce good units for Iraq in the future. Suffice to say, National Guard and active units that go through Fort Irwin aren’t going to get the same tough expe­ri­ence they would have with the [11th ACR] as OPFOR and that means they’ll be less ready for com­bat when they get to Iraq. This is a des­per­a­tion mea­sure, and I think the Army will come to regret it.

October 17th, 2004 | War Update | Comments Off Both comments and pings are currently closed.