1st AD soldiers training for '06 Iraq deployment

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.estripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=27756

Over the next three months, about 3,000 soldiers from V Corps’ 1st Armored Division will deploy for exercises at Hohenfels and Grafenwöhr training areas in southeast Germany to get soldiers ready for their next Iraq deployment.

This round of training was scheduled before 1st AD units returned from Iraq in July 2004. Exercise Iron Lightning will ready the units for their next trip downrange in early 2006, said Capt. Aaron Hatok, a 1st AD spokesman.

“This is what the commander considers to be the capstone of their retraining in coming back from Iraq,” Hatok said. “This training puts everything together in an environment where they’ll be able to conduct full spectrum operations when they’re complete.”

By full spectrum operations, Hatok refers to having units capable of conducting counter-insurgency operations as well as major combat operations.

[GetTheRightVote]

1. Hopefully we end this before that time and they will never go over there

:kick:

[leftchick]

5. Ha Ha Ha Ha .. you are joking, right?

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/outrage?bid=13&pid=2132

While the exact figure may change, suspicions of undisclosed US imperial plans--exemplified by permanent military bases--rightfully linger. Before the war, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz suggested moving US troops stationed in Saudi Arabia into Iraq. In October, a survey by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes found that two-thirds of respondents disapproved of a permanent military presence, even though more than half thought the US would build the bases anyway.

Now comes a report in the New York Sun by Eli Lake revealing that the Pentagon is building a permanent military communications system in Iraq, a necessary foundation for any lasting troop presence. The new network will comprise twelve communications towers throughout Iraq, linking Camp Victory in Baghdad to other existing (and future) bases across the country, eventually connecting with US bases in Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan.

"People need to get realistic and think in terms of our presence being in Iraq for a generation or until democratic stability in the region is reached," Dewey Clarridge, the CIA's former chief of Arab operations (and Iran-contra point man), told the Sun.

The fabled "exit strategy" may be not to exit. Thomas Donnelly, a defense specialist at the American Enterprise Institute, said the new communication system resembles those built in West Germany and the Balkans, places where American troops remain today. "The operational advantages of US bases in Iraq should be obvious for other power-projection missions in the region," Donnelly wrote in an AEI policy paper.

Next time the Bush Administration hints at withdrawing troops, keep these grand plans in mind.


,,, The bush plan is FOREVER in the Mid East. Get Used to it.

[firefox]

2. The Empire Strikes back and back and back n/t

[me b zola]

3. Interesting

So an additional 3,000 troops will be trained & located in Germany in June '05. Hmmmmm

[daleo]

4. 06 - 2006 or 3006?

Sorry, the article says 2006, but it also doesn't rule out the quagmire lasting until 3006.

[saigon68]

6. War without end

These people are totally insane.