NYT: Military Wants More Civilians to Help in Iraq

[kskiska]

Senior military officers, including members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have told President Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that the new Iraq strategy could fail unless more civilian agencies step forward quickly to carry out plans for reconstruction and political development.

The complaints reflect fresh tensions between the Pentagon and the State Department over personnel demands that have fallen most heavily on the military. But they also draw on a deeper reservoir of concerns among officers who have warned that a military buildup alone cannot solve Iraq’s problems, and who now fear that the military will bear a disproportionate burden if Mr. Bush’s strategy falls short.

Among particular complaints, the officers cited a request from the office of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that military personnel temporarily fill more than one-third of 350 new State Department jobs in Iraq that are to be created under the new strategy.

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Mr. Gates made clear that he shared the officers’ concerns, telling senators, “If you were troubled by the memo, that was mild compared to my reaction when I saw it.”

more…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/07/washington/07military.html?hp&ex=1170824400&en=f4de81df42c24619&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[MadMaddie]

1. Military personel are not State Department employees and they

will not be compensated as such...this is bullshit...Condi Rice can't do her fucking job and hire qualified employees and so they are going to take 350 military personel who are needed elsewhere to cover up for her fuck up.....

Utter Bullshit....

[babylonsister]

2. Civilian agencies as in Halliburton types, as in beaucoup more bucks?

350 NEW STATE DEPARTMENT JOBS? For a short term 'surge' under the new strategy? Fuckin' liars.

Past time to get out!

[annabanana]

8. BIG money for mercenaries & private contractors!!

That's what all that money in the budget is for. It's just more shoveling money out of the treasury. As fast as possible.

Grover, fill the bathtub!

[sydny1039]

10. War is a racket!! Guess where that 12 billion in missing money went?

It wasn't just the Iraqi ministries that took it. It was some of our own folks and a lot of those contractors walked away with a brick of $100 bills. How stupid is the Congress not to understand this? All they want to do is blame it on the Iraqi ministry employees and officials but after some of our own soldiers were caught trying to sell some of the historical artifacts from Iraq, i don't put anything past a lot of them.

[John Q. Citizen]

3. The problem is they can't force civilians to go. They can just quit. n/t

[Tin Man]

12. not when they're members of W's new "War is Peace Corps"

refer to W's 2007 State of the Union address.

And one of the first steps we can take together is to add to the ranks of our military so that the American Armed Forces are ready for all the challenges ahead. (Applause.) Tonight I ask the Congress to authorize an increase in the size of our active Army and Marine Corps by 92,000 in the next five years. (Applause.) A second task we can take on together is to design and establish a volunteer Civilian Reserve Corps. Such a corps would function much like our military reserve. It would ease the burden on the Armed Forces by allowing us to hire civilians with critical skills to serve on missions abroad when America needs them. It would give people across America who do not wear the uniform a chance to serve in the defining struggle of our time.

[John Q. Citizen]

15. I wonder what the deal is with that? Can they stop loss 'em under his proposal?

[babylonsister]

4. Furthermore, recommend for outrage yet again. nt

[grytpype]

5. I wouldn't set foot in that hellhole!

Who wants to be a part of that disaster?

[Miss Chybil]

6. How dare Rice have military personnel fill State Department jobs?

Is she too afraid to send her own people to work in the hell hole she's helped to create?

[IndianaGreen]

7. There are plenty of DOD civilians that can be tapped for Iraq duty

and under Rumsfeld's new national security personnel system now in place, they can be involuntarily deployed to Iraq. Let's start with the DOD civilians!

[Eugene]

9. Rice asked for WHAT!?!? I don't think she gets it.

:wtf: Recommending out of sheer disbelief.

The Pentagon ran the original reconstruction effort and bungled the job catastrophically.
Foreign aid, nation building, civil society building full under the State Department's area
of expertise before the neocons took over. Political influence and soft power are not the
jobs of the military.

This reconstruction push is too little too late, but if Condoleezza Rice will not take charge
of the the effort, it doesn't stand a chance. All we have is more of the same.

Rice and her fellow neocons have not learned a thing from Iraq.

[rodeodance]

11. Rice also said it would take 6 months!

..... But Mr. Gates said Tuesday that Ms. Rice had told him that her department needed six months to locate and prepare civil servants and contractors to send abroad. “It is illustrative of the difficulty of getting other agencies to provide people on a timely basis,” Mr. Gates said.

Members of the Joint Chiefs and commanders in Iraq have been delivering the same message recently to the president and defense secretary about the necessity for other parts of government to join the effort, according to administration and military officials.

“The chiefs have made that point, and repeatedly,” said one senior Bush administration official who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions among the president, defense secretary, commanders in Iraq and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

The officials said the commanders had also been expressing broader frustrations, including that the additional $1 billion in new money for reconstruction requested by the president may not be sufficient.

They also fear that additional contractors may not be readily available to assist, and that a large number of jobs that could be performed by civilians — like engineers, lawyers, veterinarians and accountants — are still conducted by military personnel at a time when the armed services are stretched thin.

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. I have to ask, does he mean Iraqi citizens or American citizens?

I mean, who knows anymore? It's like they're pulling this stuff out of their ass.

[classysassy]

14. Send in

the Hessians.