  Robert Naiman: Joint Chiefs: Don't Mess With Dwell Time
Reported by Huffington Post on Wednesday, 4 November 2009 (on November 4, 2009)
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If you think there\'s a house-on-fire emergency demanding that President Obama send 40,000 more troops to Afghanistan right away (is your name Fred Kagan?) you don\'t just have a problem with President Barack Obama. You have a problem with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The Wall Street Journal reports:
At a White House meeting Friday, the Joint Chiefs of Staff urged President Barack Obama to send fresh troops to Afghanistan only if they have spent at least a year in the U.S. since their last overseas tour, according to people familiar with the matter. If Mr. Obama agreed to that condition, many potential Afghanistan reinforcements wouldn\'t be available until next summer at the earliest.
A recent study by the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, concluded that the U.S. has only three Army and Marine brigades - about 11,000 to 15,000 troops - capable of deploying to Afghanistan this year after spending at least 12 months back in the U.S.
Note that, by law, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff \"is the principal military adviser to the President.\"
Like every other patriotic American, I want to support our troops. If the Joint Chiefs say our troops need twelve months at home before being sent to Afghanistan, I think we better do what they say.
The rise is military suicides is a key issue driving the Joint Chiefs\' concern:
Army officials say the strain of repeated deployments with minimal time back in the U.S. is one of the biggest factors fueling the rise in military suicides.
The Army hit a grim milestone last year when the suicide rate exceeded that of the general population for the first time: 20.2 per 100,000 people in the military, compared with the [demographically-adjusted - RN] civilian rate of 19.5 per 100,000.
This year\'s figures are likely to be worse than last year\'s:
The October suicide figures mean that at least 134 active-duty soldiers have taken their own lives so far this year, putting the Army on pace to break last year\'s record of 140 active-duty suicides. The number of Army suicides has risen 37% since 2006.
Despite all this, Fred Kagan appears to be criticizing President Obama for delaying action on General McChrystal\'s request for 40,000 more troops.
The New York Times reports:
Frederick W. Kagan, a military expert at the American Enterprise Institute who has advised General McChrystal, said that a decision in mid- or late November to add to American forces meant that most of those troops would not be in Afghanistan until April or May, past the beginning of what is traditionally considered the spring fighting season in the country.
According to the logic of Kagan\'s apparent argument - we need 40,000 more troops in Afghanistan for the \"spring fighting season\" - Obama must not only agree to McChrystal\'s request, he must reject the urging of the Joint Chiefs not to reduce \"dwell time.\" I\'m sure that Fred Kagan, as a patriotic American, supports our troops too. I hope he supports the urging of the Joint Chiefs that our troops get 12 months at home to train - and to live under the same roof as their spouses and kids, and to get their heads together.
Moreover, as the Obama Administration is being urged to press Afghan President Karzai to take action on corruption in the Afghan government, the Times
Links: Full news story
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