History > 2007 > USA > Pentagon (II)

Renovation at a Shelter

Has Residents Feeling Uneasy

July 26, 2007
The New York Times
By ETHAN WILENSKY-LANFORD

The only homeless shelter in New York just for veterans will close in August for renovations, which city officials say will improve conditions there. But the plans are upsetting some of its residents.

The shelter, the Borden Avenue Veterans’ Residence, in Long Island City, Queens, is to reopen in November with a little more than half its current number of beds, according to officials, who also say the refurbished facility may charge rent, which it does not do now.

The city says the renovation of the shelter, which will replace the current dormitory-style arrangement with single rooms, will improve privacy and services for the veterans. Some of the residents, however, said that they had been told little about the plan and were wary, concerned it would disrupt a sense of community that was important to them.

The temporary closing will come eight months after Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, along with the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, formed a task force to reduce homelessness among veterans, who in 2005 constituted a third of the city’s adult homeless population, according to the department. The mayor in 2004 announced the goal of bringing down homelessness in the city over all by two-thirds within five years. Although the number of single adults in shelters has decreased since then by 19 percent, officials said, the number of homeless families has grown.

In December, when he formed the task force, Mr. Bloomberg said he would place 100 homeless veterans in permanent housing within 100 days.

“We achieved that goal with many days to spare,” said George Nashak, a deputy commissioner of the Department of Homeless Services, adding that 179 homeless veterans from the shelter were placed in permanent housing in the first six months of 2007, 52 percent more than in the same period last year.

The number of veterans staying at the Borden Avenue shelter, which officials say currently has a capacity of 410, now averages 300 a night.

Jeffrey Hanson, 45, moved out of the shelter to a one-room apartment in Jamaica, Queens, in mid-July after a six-month stay. While at the shelter, he said, he was able to get a new driver’s license and pass a test to work in the prison system, though he works currently as a street vendor. “It takes you from where you are at to where you ought to be,” said Mr. Hanson, who said he served in the Marine Corps from 1981 to 1987, with a tour in Beirut.

Some residents who remained at the shelter said they were confused about what would happen to them — and to the shelter — next month.

Hiawatha Collins, 38, a Marine Corps veteran who was born in Yonkers, said he became homeless for the first time last winter. “We haven’t been told anything,” he said on Friday as he was hurrying to catch the G train near the shelter, which sits between an industrial zone and one that is sprouting high-rise apartments. “They haven’t told us where they’re sending us, if we got apartments, if we’re going to another shelter.”

Mr. Collins, who said he was working in Red Hook, Brooklyn, but had not made enough money to rent an apartment, said that he would not want to go to a shelter where he would be around people who had not served in the military. “A lot of the civilian population does not understand veterans, and does not know how to deal with veterans,” Mr. Collins said. “Honestly speaking, I’d rather be on the street.”

Mr. Nashak said that the city and the Salvation Army, which runs the shelter, are trying to move as many veterans as possible from Borden Avenue into permanent housing before Aug. 15, when the shelter is to close. Those who have not gotten housing by then will be placed together at one of the other city shelters, according to the Department of Homeless Services. The department said the Salvation Army was responsible for informing the clients about the move. “We really believe it is important for veterans to live together,” Mr. Nashak said. “Because it is important to our clients, it is important to us.”

The Borden Avenue shelter, which opened in 1987, is housed in a single-story building that was once a factory and was the first in the country exclusively for veterans, according to the Department of Homeless Services. People who stay there sleep in large, open spaces separated by low walls. Beds are lined up against the walls and in the center of the rooms. Residents have small metal lockers that are arranged near the beds.

Once renovated, the building will house as many as 243 people. Each person will have a room with a bed, a chair and a door. The city said the new setup would allow staff members to provide better services to the clients.

Whether the renovated facility will charge rent has yet to be determined, officials said, adding that more information about the city’s plan to reduce homelessness among veterans will be made public with the release of a report from the task force.

Eric N. Gioia, who represents Long Island City on the City Council, said that he was concerned about allegations of mistreatment by the staff and of residents bullying other residents in the Borden Avenue shelter and would be calling for an investigation into conditions there. He said that area residents and, increasingly, veterans in the shelter have called with complaints about it.

Residents interviewed outside the shelter in recent weeks said that drug use is prevalent there. At least 10 men said that clients smoke crack cocaine regularly in the bathrooms.

“You hear them with the lighters — flicking the lighters — and you smell the chemicals,” said Gregory Wietrzychowski, 46, a shelter resident who said he served the Army from 1978 to 1980 and later painted street art in Europe. He said that for veterans who have been through a recovery program, “it’s a real challenge to stay clean.”

The Police Department said officers had made 29 arrests at the shelter so far this year, mostly related to narcotics. “It’s a location that requires periodic police attention,” said Paul J. Browne, the department’s chief spokesman.

In addition, ambulances have been called to the shelter for 42 drug-related emergencies in the past 12 months, a Fire Department spokesman said.

The Department of Homeless Services defended the Salvation Army’s track record running the shelter, and said that drug offenses were taken seriously. “We have a significant security presence at the Borden Avenue shelter, and when we identify someone who is using substances in the facility, we treat it as the criminal activity that it is and refer that individual to the substance abuse treatment that they obviously need,” Mr. Nashak said.

Dennis P. Culhane, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania who specializes in homelessness and has worked as a consultant for the city, said the plan to shrink and reconfigure the shelter would improve it.

He added, “It’s easier for criminal elements to form and people who need help to fall through the cracks — and to go unengaged by the service providers — at the larger, barracks-style facilities.”

Al Baker contributed reporting.

Renovation at a Shelter Has Residents Feeling Uneasy, NYT, 26.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/26/nyregion/26veterans.html

Op-Ed Contributor

A War the Pentagon Can’t Win

July 24, 2007
The New York Times
By DANIEL BENJAMIN and STEVEN SIMON

AS the National Intelligence Estimate issued last week confirms, a terrorist haven has emerged in Pakistan’s tribal belt. And as recent revelations about an aborted 2005 operation in the region demonstrate, our Defense Department is chronically unable to conduct the sort of missions that would disrupt terrorist activity there and in similarly ungoverned places.

These are perhaps the most important kind of counterterrorism missions. Because the Pentagon has shown that it cannot carry them out, the Central Intelligence Agency should be given the chance to perform them.

The story of the scrubbed 2005 operation illustrates why the Pentagon is incapable of doing what needs to be done. The preparations for the mission to capture or kill Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader, Ayman al-Zawahri, appear to have unfolded like others before it. Intelligence was received about a high-level Qaeda meeting. A small snatch or kill operation was to be carried out by Special Operations. But military brass added large numbers of troops to conduct additional intelligence, force protection, communications and extraction work.

At that point, as one senior intelligence official told this newspaper, “The whole thing turned into the invasion of Pakistan,” and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld pulled the plug.

To those of us who worked in counterterrorism in the 1990s, this sequence of events feels like the movie “Groundhog Day.” Similar decision-making led to the failure to mount critical operations on at least three occasions during the Clinton administration. The most notable was the effort to get the Pentagon to conduct a ground operation against the Qaeda leadership in Afghanistan beginning in late 1998.

The Clinton White House repeatedly requested options involving ground forces that could hunt and destroy terrorists in Afghanistan. Repeatedly, senior military officials declared such a mission “would be Desert One,” referring to the disastrous 1980 effort to free American hostages in Iran. When the Pentagon finally delivered a plan, the deployment envisioned would have been sufficient to take and hold Kabul but not to surprise and pin down a handful of terrorists.

But the Zawahri stand-down is even more telling. It occurred four years into the global war on terrorism, when the basic questions about the nature of the Qaeda threat had been settled and the nation, in the oft-intoned phrase of the Bush administration, was said to be always “on the offensive.” Moreover, it happened on the watch of Donald Rumsfeld, the most dominating secretary of defense in memory, who overruled military planners routinely as he micromanaged the deployment to Iraq. Perhaps his attention was focused on the growing mess in that country, but even Mr. Rumsfeld, who viewed special forces as the keystone of a transformed 21st-century American military, could not keep on track a mission that would have stunned Al Qaeda.

Highly mobile, highly lethal counterterrorism operations are clearly possible. Israel scored victories with raids in Entebbe, Uganda; Tunis; and Beirut, Lebanon, in the 1970s and 1980s. Other countries, like Germany, have carried out similar operations, like the Mogadishu raid of 1977 that freed passengers on a Lufthansa plane hijacked to Somalia by the Baader-Meinhof gang. An operation in Pakistan’s tribal areas — setting aside the issue of whether this could politically upend President Pervez Musharraf — would be extremely difficult. But it is hard to believe it is impossible.

Since the Desert One debacle, the United States has poured vast resources into its special forces. The Special Operations Command budget has nearly doubled since 2001, and it is expected to grow 150 percent over five years. The command includes more than 50,000 troops, the equivalent of three or four infantry divisions. The best of them — Delta Force and the Navy Seals — have developed into highly skilled unconventional forces.

Yet fear of failure and casualties has meant they are seldom, if ever, deployed for such counterterrorism operations. In theory, the best place in the government for small-scale missions to be planned and executed is the Pentagon, because snatch or kill teams should be plugged into a larger military support team. The reality, unfortunately, is that they can’t be plugged in without being bogged down.

Senior officers, trained to understand the American way of war to mean overwhelming force and superior firepower, view special ops outside a war zone as something to be avoided at all cost. This has been true even in lower-risk efforts to capture war criminals in the Balkans. The record demonstrates that our military is simply incapable of adapting its culture to embrace such operations. The Pentagon should just stop planning for missions it won’t launch.

While the C.I.A. doesn’t have an unblemished record, its counterterrorism operations have shown more promise than the Pentagon’s. The agency has already had some successes operating in ungoverned spaces. In the first reported attack in such a region, a C.I.A.-operated Predator drone launched a missile that killed a Qaeda lieutenant in Yemen in 2002. Since then the Predator has been used to strike Al Qaeda at least eight times, although with limited success. At least initially, the trigger in these attacks was pulled by C.I.A. operatives, not soldiers.

The record of a small, vulnerable C.I.A. paramilitary force in Afghanistan in 2001 was more impressive. The group’s audacious reconnaissance work and direction of local warlords in action against the Taliban provided the most significant battlefield success of the post-9/11 period. Without this risky, cold-start intervention, the American troops that followed the agency into Afghanistan would have gone in blind and worried more about their flanks than about Al Qaeda.

The agency’s history of ill-conceived covert political operations from the 1950s through the 1970s may cause some to worry. That agency, however, no longer exists. Congressional hearings and legislation, as well as fear of casualties, have given the clandestine service its own case of risk aversion, though it seems less severe than the Pentagon’s.

We have failed in Pakistan, and are failing in Iraq, to achieve a primary aim of our counterterrorism policy: preventing Al Qaeda from acquiring safe havens. Our military has shown itself to be a poor instrument for fighting terrorism, and there are now thousands of jihadists who weren’t in Iraq at the time of the 2003 invasion. When the inevitable American drawdown occurs, we will need a way to keep the terrorists off balance in Iraq and to disrupt the conveyor belt that is already moving fighters to places like Lebanon, North Africa and Europe.

With new leadership at both the C.I.A. and the Defense Department, the Bush administration has a chance to fix this problem. The missing ingredient for success with the most important kind of counterterrorism missions is not courage or technical capacity — our uniformed personnel are unsurpassed — but organizational culture. With a small fraction of the resources that Pentagon has for special operations, the C.I.A. could develop the paramilitary capacity we profoundly need.

Daniel Benjamin, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and Steven Simon, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, were members of the National Security Council staff from 1994 to 1999.

    A War the Pentagon Can’t Win, NYT, 24.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/24/opinion/24benjamin.html

Pentagon Seeks $1.2 Billion for Trucks

Made to Withstand Roadside Bombs

July 19, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, July 18 — Pentagon officials said Wednesday that they were asking Congress to use $1.2 billion this year to build nearly 4,000 armored trucks designed to withstand roadside bomb attacks, a move that follows Congressional criticism that the Defense Department has been too slow to buy enough of the vehicles for troops in Iraq.

The additional money, which Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates asked for in a meeting with senior lawmakers on Tuesday night, would allow 1,500 additional Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles, or MRAPs, to be produced this year, Pentagon officials told reporters.

A Pentagon spokesman, Geoff Morrell, described Mr. Gates’s meeting with lawmakers as “very positive” and said the defense secretary was “optimistic that they will swiftly approve this reprogramming request.”

The vehicles, which cost around $1 million each, have a raised chassis and V-shaped underside that deflects explosions better than the flat underbelly on Humvees, which most combat units in Iraq and Afghanistan have. But only about 200 MRAPs are in use in Iraq.

The Bush administration originally sought $2.6 billion for fiscal 2007 to buy additional MRAPs but Congress increased the total by $1.2 billion. The Pentagon’s request this week, which shifts money from other Defense Department accounts, together with an additional $400 million the Pentagon now plans to spend on its own, would raise the total yet again, to around $5.4 billion, making the MRAP the Pentagon’s third largest acquisition program. The additional money will enable the Pentagon to increase the number of MRAPs due for delivery by the end of the year to 3,900 from 2,400, according to John J. Young Jr., director of Defense Research and Engineering at the Pentagon. About 3,500 are scheduled to be delivered to Iraq by then, he said. By next March, a total of 6,415 are due to be built, he said

By this December, contractors building the vehicles are scheduled to be producing 1,300 vehicles a month, up from 82 that were produced by all suppliers last month, Mr. Young said. He conceded that increasing the production so steeply could lead to bottlenecks that might cause delays. “This is an extremely aggressive program and the Defense Department is accepting risk here, and we may encounter manufacturing issues as we accelerate,” he said. “The entire Defense Department leadership team agrees we should accept these risks in order to provide more capable vehicles to our troops as fast as possible.”

Before the Pentagon decided several months ago to buy as many MRAPs as could be made, the vehicles were bought primarily for units with high-risk missions, like clearing roads of bombs, officials said.

Mr. Gates ordered an acceleration in production in May after news reports indicated that Marine units using the vehicles in Anbar Province had a substantial decline in casualties from roadside bombs. Representative Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said he was pleased the Pentagon “finally acknowledged the true magnitude of this need.”

Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, and Senator Christopher S. Bond, Republican of Missouri, in a letter to Mr. Gates last month estimated that delays in producing the vehicles had “cost the lives” of more than 700 soldiers, who they said would have survived bomb attacks had they been riding in MRAPs, instead of Humvees.

When outside American bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, most service members drive in armored Humvees, which have proved increasingly vulnerable as roadside bombs have grown more powerful.

    Pentagon Seeks $1.2 Billion for Trucks Made to Withstand Roadside Bombs, NYT, 19.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/washington/19military.html

Marines Focus on Battlefield Ethics

July 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:22 p.m. ET
The New York Times

SAN DIEGO (AP) -- Perched atop a stack of foot lockers in a spotless barracks, drill instructor Gunnery Sgt. Celestino Casias asks 45 shaven-headed recruits what it takes to be a Marine. ''Honor, courage, commitment!'' the aspiring fighters shout in unison.

The words come easy in this new class about ethics, but allegations that Marines killed women, children and unarmed captives in Iraq and Afghanistan suggest they may sometimes prove hard to live by.

''When you are out there, you are going to be challenged ... and it's not just in Iraq or Afghanistan,'' said Lt. Col. Robert Scott, commander of a recruit battalion at Marine Corps Recruit Depot in San Diego. ''When you are on the horns of a moral dilemma, you need to refer back and think 'What would my senior (drill instructor) do?'''

To give recruits answers to that question, the Marine Corps is boosting training in values and battlefield ethics, requiring more hours of lessons on the issues than any other branch of the military does.

The Marine Corps commandant, Gen. James T. Conway, ordered the initiative in November, and a more rigorous diet of ethics training was introduced in May at the San Diego recruiting depot -- one of the service's two training centers for enlistees, graduating about 20,000 Marines a year.

''No one is prematurely judging guilt or innocence,'' Conway said in a speech Tuesday in San Francisco. ''But the very convergence of all these events concern me and so we're examining as a corps how we prepare our young squad leaders.''

Conway routinely tours Marine bases and shares with the troops his concerns about the pending criminal cases, said a spokesman, Lt. Col. T.V. Johnson.

''He wants to make sure we are making Marines the way we used to,'' Johnson said. ''If you look at the respect the American public has for Marines, each one of these incidents is a withdrawal from the bank of respect.''

The most notorious active case is the 2005 killings of 24 Iraqi civilians at Haditha. A Marine squad used grenades and gunfire on the Iraqis after a roadside bomb killed a Marine. Women and children were among the dead.

Three enlisted Marines are charged with murder and four officers are accused of failing to investigate the deaths. The defendants say they killed the Iraqis because they believed they were under attack.

A Pentagon survey of 447 Marines in Iraq last year found fewer than half said they would report a member of their unit for killing or wounding an innocent civilian. Only 38 percent said noncombatants should be treated with dignity and respect.

During 12 weeks of boot camp, Marine trainees get 38 hours of values training, up from 24. The Army provides about 24 hours of instruction on core values and ethics, the Air Force 7 1/2 hours and the Navy about five hours.

''It's about having the moral courage to do the right thing all the time,'' said one of the drill instructors, Sgt. Michael Dequatrro, 26.

The lessons start off simply: don't drink and drive, never sleep on guard duty, don't fraternize with officers.

Then tougher issues are introduced, including what it means to kill someone.

''At the beginning, we are like puppies being trained up,'' recruit Juan Baldelomar, 23, said a few days before he graduated. ''Now, we are more accountable.''

In one recent class, Gunnery Sgt. Casias asked recruits what it meant to have integrity.

Never stealing, one recruit responded. ''Doing the right thing even when no one is looking,'' said another.

Forty miles up the road at Camp Pendleton, hearing officers have been reviewing evidence against the Marines charged in the Haditha case. They recommended this past week that charges against one enlisted Marine be dropped but that the highest-ranking officer should face court-martial.

Special forces Marines also are being investigated for the shooting deaths of several civilians in Afghanistan, and a separate investigation is under way to see if Marines killed unarmed insurgent captives during a firefight in Fallujah in 2004. No one has been charged in those two cases.

David Brahms, a retired brigadier general who was formerly the top lawyer in the Marine Corps and now is a civilian lawyer, said criticism of troop behavior is unfair.

''You can't rule out women and children as noncombatants, everybody becomes the enemy,'' said Brahms, who has a client in the case of an Iraqi civilian killed at the town of Hamdania. ''Sometimes you act in ways that upon reflection turn out to be inappropriate and inadvisable.''

But for a Marine spokeswoman, Maj. Kristen Lasica, there are no gray areas.

''Honor, courage, commitment. You can't separate them from anything else,'' Lasica said. ''If you get it, you are going to make the right decision no matter how hard it is.''

------

On the Net:

Gen. Conway: http://www.usmc.mil/cmc/34cmc.nsf/cmcmain

    Marines Focus on Battlefield Ethics, NYT, 14.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Marines-Ethics.html

Army Misses Its June Goal for New Recruits

July 10, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID S. CLOUD

WASHINGTON, July 9 — The Army missed its recruiting goals in June for the second straight month, as rising casualties in Iraq and a strong economy at home kept the service from enlisting enough new soldiers, Pentagon officials said.

The Army fell more than 1,000 active duty recruits short of its June goal of 8,400, said a Pentagon official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the figures had not yet been formally released.

Lt. Col. Dan Baggio, an Army spokesman, declined to confirm the numbers, which are due to be made public on Tuesday, but he acknowledged that there had been a shortfall.

“We’re not in a doomsday situation,” Colonel Baggio said. “When we don’t make the goal, that is something of a concern, but we are not panicking.”

He said that the National Guard and the Reserves met their recruiting goals for June and that the numbers of soldiers signing up for additional years of service was strong. He declined to elaborate.

In May, the Army fell 400 enlistees short of its goal of 5,500, the first time in two years that the active force failed to meet its monthly target. The downturn has coincided with sharply higher casualty numbers in Iraq, where 331 American soldiers were killed from April to June, the highest three-month level of the war.

The downturn is particularly worrisome to Pentagon officials, especially because it has come in the summer, when recruiters normally find more fresh high school graduates eager to join.

“One of the greatest challenges of an all-volunteer force is recruiting in a protracted war, and I think you are seeing that,” a Pentagon official said.

Colonel Baggio pointed out that the Army was still on track to meet its yearly target of 80,000 new recruits because recruiting exceeded goals for several months earlier this year.

In contrast to the Army, the Marine Corps will report that it met its recruiting goals in June, said an official who declined to provide further specifics.

The recruiting demands on the Army have increased this year, as the service has embarked on a five-year effort to increase its active-duty strength to 547,000, from the currently authorized level of 514,000. The plan was announced by the Pentagon in January as a way to ease the strain on the Army in coming years of conducting continual deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Colonel Baggio said that — aside from those conflicts — recruiting had been hurt by the fact that 7 in 10 potential recruits in their late teens and early 20s do not meet Army standards, largely because they are too heavy or failed to graduate from high school.

Recruiting may also have been harmed by the fact that soldiers are now required to serve 15-month tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, an increase from the previous requirement of 12 months. The longer tours were imposed to sustain a Bush administration decision earlier this year to send an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq.

Early in the war in Iraq, the Pentagon’s goal was for active-duty troops to spend two years at home for every year deployed. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the Army eventually wanted to return to those goals. That will have to await either a reduction in overall force levels, however, or an increase in the size of the military, which has been set in motion but will take years to accomplish.

    Army Misses Its June Goal for New Recruits, NYT, 10.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/10/washington/10military.html

Navy Reasserting Control of Shipbuilding

July 9, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 4:44 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BATH, Maine (AP) -- Stung by cost overruns, the Navy is looking to return to a past when it controlled the shipbuilding process from beginning to end. The change follows a period when the Navy told shipyards what it wanted the ships to do and then let them deliver rather than getting mired in design details.

But that approach failed to control costs in construction of the speedy Littoral Combat Ship for close-to-shore operations and in the design of the stealthy DDG-1000 destroyer, the successor to the mainstay Arleigh Burke destroyers built at Bath Iron Works and at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s Ingalls shipyard in Mississippi.

The growing cost of warships in recent years has led the Navy to reduce its orders, and the resulting loss of economies of scale has driven costs of individual warships even higher. That spiral has left everyone unhappy, including the Navy, members of Congress, defense contractors -- and shipbuilders who fear for their jobs.

The Navy recently took the unusual step of punishing Lockheed Martin for cost overruns on the smaller vessel -- the Littoral Combat Ship -- by canceling the second of its two ships. Lockheed's first ship had grown from $275 million to between $350 million and $375 million. Lockheed, which accepted responsibility, isn't expected to take a big financial hit. In April, the company reported it earned $690 million in the first quarter, beating Wall Street's expectations, and raised its full-year financial forecast.

Construction hasn't begun on the new destroyer, but its cost already has ballooned from early estimates of about $2 billion for the lead ship to more than $3 billion apiece for the first two, according to Ron O'Rourke of the Congressional Research Service. As the ship has grown bigger, more complicated and more expensive, the Navy scaled back the number to be built to just seven.

The Navy's fleet, meanwhile, has shrunk to 276 ships, down from nearly 600 during President Reagan's defense buildup. The Navy, which blames the cost of ships in part for the low orders that cut back the fleet, has a goal of 313 ships.

''The Navy obviously needs to do something. The plan we've been on has resulted in a shrinking, aging Navy,'' said Winslow Wheeler, military analyst for the Center for Defense Information, a Washington-based think tank.

Some say cost overruns are inevitable as the Navy launches new classes of warships.

Unlike other defense contractors like aircraft makers and tank builders, shipbuilders don't have the luxury of building prototypes. The first warship of a new class is the prototype of sorts and thus prone to unexpected problems during design and construction.

But the Navy isn't letting shipyards off the hook.

Starting in the spring, Navy Secretary Donald Winter has been making the case for what he describes as ''tough love'' for the shipbuilding industry.

''The Navy must reassert its control over the entire shipbuilding acquisition process. The Navy owns the fleet, and the Navy is the customer. Sometimes one has the impression that this tiny distinction has been forgotten,'' Winter wrote in an essay last month. He declined to elaborate to The Associated Press on his comments.

The tough talk follows a lean period for the shipbuilding industry. The six shipyards that build the Navy's largest ships -- aircraft carriers, amphibious assault ships, cruisers, destroyers and submarines -- have lost 24,000 jobs since 1991.

Earnings in the shipbuilding divisions of General Dynamics Corp., Bath's parent company, and Northrop Grumman, parent of Mississippi's Ingalls shipyard, have lagged compared to their aerospace divisions, according to analysts.

At Bath Iron Works, things appear fine on the outside. Two 510-foot destroyers are berthed in the Kennebec River: The Sampson has been delivered to the Navy, while outfitting continues on the Sterett. Another destroyer, the Stockdale, is taking shape nearby.

The clanging and grinding of metal and sparks from welders in the shipyard's buildings indicate steady work on the massive jigsaw puzzle pieces that'll eventually be put together to create another three destroyers in the next few years.

But the shipyard now has 5,800 workers, down from a peak of 12,000 during the Reagan years. Workers fear that the slow but steady trend of pink slips will continue until the Navy gets serious about rebuilding its aging fleet.

Bath shipbuilders are competitive, but morale has suffered because there's so little additional work in the pipeline, said Mike Keenan, president of Local S6 of the Machinists union, which represents 3,300 shipyard workers.

The shipyard is scrambling to fill a potential gap in work as the Arleigh Burke program wraps up and the DDG-1000 ramps up between 2008 and 2010. It is considering bidding on smaller Coast Guard cutters and a ship called the ''joint high speed vessel'' for the Army and Marines.

''This pier should be lined with (more) ships,'' Keenan said. ''If they want competition, they got it. The men and women of Bath Iron Works have no problem competing against anybody. The problem is when you have nothing to compete for.''

Critics say the Navy should shoulder some of the blame for escalating costs for asking for too many features on its ships. Also, shipbuilders account for only a portion of a ship's cost. Much of it is devoted to high-tech weapons systems made elsewhere.

The Littoral Combat Ship, 55 of which are to be built, was rushed under an expedited process using smaller shipyards. The Navy wants a ship that's capable of operating in shallow, coastal waters to meet emerging threats, including modern-day pirates and terrorists.

Loren Thompson, a defense analyst with the Lexington Institute, said it made no sense to order ships and set prices without a final blueprint, which is what happened as shipbuilders moved quickly to build a ship that the Navy wanted fast.

The Navy wants defense contractors to be efficient like the commercial sector, but that process wouldn't have flown in the commercial sector, Thompson said.

''Toyota wouldn't do that,'' he said.

Paul Nisbet, an analyst at JSA Research Inc. in Newport, R.I., said the Navy and the shipyards collaborate in setting up contracts they can't live with. Shipyards make low bids to win, and the Navy wants low bids to get through Congress, he said.

''It's all part of politics,'' he said.

The Navy agrees that it's not without blame, and has decided to take more control over the shipbuilding process. It doesn't plan to create preliminary contract designs, as it did before the first Arleigh Burke warship was launched in 1989, but to be involved in every step from design through construction.

Eager for more work, Bath Iron Works will work with the Navy regardless of whether there's a hands-on or hands-off philosophy, said Kendell Pease, vice president for government relations and communications for Bath's parent, General Dynamics.

''We'll build ships whichever way the Navy wants us to. And the more ships, the better,'' he said. ''Just keep the ships coming.''

    Navy Reasserting Control of Shipbuilding, NYT, 9.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Shipbuilding-Woes.html

Gov't Struggles to Care for Wounded GI's

June 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:29 a.m. ET
The New York Times

More than 800 of them have lost an arm, a leg, fingers or toes. More than 100 are blind. Dozens need tubes and machines to keep them alive. Hundreds are disfigured by burns, and thousands have brain injuries and mangled minds.

These are America's war wounded, a toll that has received less attention than the 3,500 troops killed in Iraq. Depending on how you count them, they number between 35,000 and 53,000.

More of them are coming home, with injuries of a scope and magnitude the government did not predict and is now struggling to treat.

''If we left Iraq tomorrow, we would have the legacy of all these people for many years to come,'' said Dr. Jeffrey Drazen, editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine and an adviser to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. ''The military simply wasn't prepared for its own success'' at keeping severely wounded soldiers alive, he said.

Survival rates today are even higher than the record levels set early in the war, thanks to body armor and better care. For every American soldier or Marine killed in Iraq, 15 others have survived illness or injury there.

Unlike previous wars, few of them have been shot. The signature weapon of this war -- the improvised explosive device, or IED -- has left a signature wound: traumatic brain injury.

Soldiers hit in the head or knocked out by blasts -- ''getting your bell rung'' is the military euphemism -- sometimes have no visible wounds but a fog of war in their minds. They can be addled, irritable, depressed and unaware they are impaired.

Only an estimated 2,000 cases of brain injury have been treated, but doctors think many less obvious cases have gone undetected. One small study found that more than half of one group of wounded troops arriving at Walter Reed Army Medical Center had brain injuries. Around the nation, a new effort is under way to check every returning man and woman for this possibility.

Some of those on active duty may have subtle brain damage that was missed when they were treated for more visible wounds. Half of those wounded in action returned to duty within 72 hours -- before some brain injuries may have been apparent. The military just adopted new procedures to spot these cases, too.

Back home, concerns grow about care. The Walter Reed hospital scandal and problems with some VA nursing homes have led Republicans and Democrats to call for better care for this new crop of veterans.

A lucky few get Cadillac care at one of the VA's four polytrauma centers, where the most complex wounds are treated with state-of-the-art techniques and whiz-bang devices like ''power knee'' or ''smart ankle'' prosthetics. Others battle bureaucracy to see doctors or get basic benefits in less ideal settings.

Mental health problems loom large. More than a third of troops received psychological counseling shortly after returning from Iraq, and a third of those were diagnosed with a problem, a recent Pentagon study found. The government plans to add 200 psychologists and social workers to help treat post-traumatic stress disorder and other issues.

No one knows what the ultimate cost will be. Harvard University economist Linda Bilmes estimates the lifetime health-care tab for these troops will be $250 billion to $650 billion -- a wide range but a huge sum no matter how you slice it.

Who are the wounded?

Lee Jones, 24, of Lumberton, N.C., was severely burned on the face, hands, feet and legs when his Humvee was hit with an IED two years ago. A partial amputee with speech and other problems from a severe brain injury, he now does work therapy delivering mail at a VA hospital and tries to re-establish life in a nearby apartment with a wife and baby daughter.

Marine Cpl. Joshua Pitcher, 22, from upstate New York, is a Purple Heart recipient who returned to Iraq after he was shot in 2005. Half of his skull was removed to allow his brain to swell as he now recovers from a brain injury and shrapnel wounds from a grenade blast in February.

Maj. Thomas Deierlein, 39, is a New York City marketing executive who served five years after graduating from West Point. Twelve years later, called up as a reservist, he nearly died of bullet wounds that shattered his pelvis, leaving him with a colostomy and learning to walk again.

Joseph ''Jay'' Briseno, 24, of Manassas Park, Va., was shot in the back of the neck by an Iraqi in the early months of the war. One of the most severely wounded, he is now a quadriplegic, on a breathing machine, blind and unable to speak, but aware of what has happened to him.

''The mistake in Vietnam was, we hid the injured away from folks so they didn't get to tell their stories. Now it's important that we let them tell their stories to the public,'' said Dr. Steven Scott, director of the Polytrauma Rehabilitation Center at the Tampa VA Medical Center in Florida.

Counting the wounded can be contentious. Earlier this year, the Department of Defense changed how it tallies war-related injuries and illness, dropping those not needing air transport to a military hospital from the bottom-line total.

Bilmes, the economist, thinks this is disingenuous.

''An accident that happens while they're there is a cost of war, particularly when you factor in the length of deployment'' and injury-inducing conditions like very hot weather, carrying heavy packs, and more vehicle accidents because it is not safe to walk anywhere, she said.

As of June 2, 25,830 troops had been wounded in action. Of these, 7,675 needed airlifts to military hospitals and the rest were treated and remained in Iraq.

There were another 27,103 non-battle-related air transports. Of those, 7,188 had injuries. Most occurred from vehicle accidents, training or work-related accidents. Ten percent were sports injuries, said Dr. Michael Kilpatrick, who tracks this information for the Defense Department.

Nearly 20,000 of these ''non-hostile'' airlifts were for illnesses or medical issues: general symptoms like fever or pain needing tests or evaluation; back problems; psychological problems adjusting to being in a war zone; ''affective psychoses'' (not able to function or care for themselves); neuroses; respiratory or chest symptoms; depression; head and neck problems (including traumatic brain injury); epilepsy; infections, and muscle pulls and strains.

''I don't want to try to say these are not war-related. Being in the military is a very physically demanding job,'' Kilpatrick said.

For stress-related problems, the military tries ''three hots and a cot'' -- warm meals and a chance to sleep. Most of the time it works and troops return to their unit, Kilpatrick said.

Of the troops air evacuated to the military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, 20 percent return to Iraq and 80 percent go back to the United States for more care or disability discharge.

Of the half-million troops who have left active duty and are eligible for VA health care, about one-third have sought it. The most complicated cases end up at one of the four polytrauma centers, in Tampa, Fla.; Richmond, Va.; Palo Alto, Calif.; and Minneapolis.

These were formed after doctors realized they were missing problems -- amputees who were confused and unable to put on their prosthetics because of undiagnosed brain injuries, and guys who could remember their therapy dog's name but not their doctor's, or who could carry on a conversation but not recall what they had for breakfast.

Troops at these hospitals have an average of six major impairments and 10 specialists treating them.

''The important thing to realize is you could have all of them at once'' -- trouble speaking, seeing, walking, hearing, etc., Scott said.

Most of these injuries are caused by IED blasts, which send a pressurized air wave through delicate tissues like the brain, sometimes send it smacking against the inside of the skull and shearing fragile nerve connections that control speech, vision, reasoning, memory and other functions. Lungs, eardrums, spinal cords -- virtually anything -- can be damaged by the pressure wave. Injuries also come from collapsing buildings, flying debris, heat, burns or inhaled gases and vapors.

''Many of these you can't see on an X-ray,'' such as glass shards that can cause internal bleeding, Scott said.

In prior wars, one of every five to seven troops surviving a war-related wound had a traumatic brain injury, the military estimates. It's much higher in this war.

A pilot project at Walter Reed in 2003 to screen 155 patients returning from Iraq found that 62 percent had a brain injury.

''This is a very rapidly evolving area as a disease,'' with no screening test, agreed-upon set of symptoms for diagnosis, or even a billing code, said Kilpatrick, the military doctor.

Much needs to be learned about how to treat these injuries, he said, but credited the military medical staff for having the chance.

''It's just amazing to me every day when I look at these numbers,'' he said. ''The good news is that the majority of these people who become ill or injured ... are going to survive and are going to be able to return either to the military or to civilian life and be productive.''

------

On the Net:

Government casualty data: http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/castop.htm

State breakdowns: http://siadapp.dmdc.osd.mil/personnel/CASUALTY/STATE--OEF--OIF.pdf

Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center: http://www.dvbic.org

Harvard economist report: http://ksgnotes1.harvard.edu/Research/wpaper.nsf/RWP/RWP07-001

Department of Veterans Affairs: http://www.va.gov/

Department of Defense: http://www.defenselink.mil/

    Gov't Struggles to Care for Wounded GI's, NYT, 24.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Coming-Home-Wounded.html

Military Sees Drop in Black Recruits

June 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:15 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The number of blacks joining the military has plunged by more than one-third since the Afghanistan and Iraq wars began, as other job prospects soar and relatives of potential recruits increasingly discourage them from signing up.

According to data obtained by The Associated Press, the decline covers all four military services for active duty recruits, and the drop is even more dramatic when National Guard and Reserve recruiting is included.

The findings reflect the growing unpopularity of the wars, particularly among family members and other adults who exert influence over high school and college students considering the military as a place to serve their country, further their education or build a career.

Walking past the Army recruiting station in downtown Washington, D.C., this past week, Sean Glover said he has done all he can to talk black relatives out of joining the military.

''I don't think it's a good time. I don't support the government's efforts here and abroad,'' said Glover, 36.

The message comes as no surprise to the Pentagon where efforts are under way to increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps.

Marine Commandant Gen. James T. Conway agreed that the bloodshed in Iraq -- where more than 3,540 U.S. troops have died -- is the biggest deterrent for prospective recruits.

According to Pentagon data, there were nearly 51,500 new black recruits for active duty and reserves in 2001. That number fell to less than 32,000 in 2006, a 38 percent decline.

When only active duty troops are counted, the number of black recruits went from more than 31,000 in 2002 to about 23,600 in 2006, almost one-quarter fewer. The decline is particularly stark for the Army.

    Military Sees Drop in Black Recruits, NYT, 24.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Military-Recruits-Blacks.html

Combat Tours Revisited Again

June 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 2:56 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Army is considering whether it will have to extend the combat tours of troops in Iraq if President Bush opts to maintain the recent buildup of forces through spring 2008.

Acting Army Secretary Pete Geren testified Tuesday that the service is reviewing other options, including relying more heavily on Army reservists or Navy and Air Force personnel, so as not to put more pressure on a stretched active-duty force.

Most soldiers spend 15 months in combat with a guaranteed 12 months home, a rotation plan that already has infuriated Democrats because it exceeds the service's goal of giving troops equal time home as in combat. In coming weeks, the Senate will vote on a proposal by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would restrict deployments.

''It's too early to look into the next year, but for the Army we have to begin to plan,'' Geren told the Senate Armed Services Committee. ''We have to look into our options.''

Gen. David Petraeus, Iraq war commander, on Sunday suggested that conditions on the ground might not be stable enough by September to justify a drop in force levels and predicted that stabilizing Iraq could take as long as a decade. Earlier this year, Bush ordered the deployment of some 30,000 additional troops as part of a massive U.S.-led security push around Baghdad and the western Anbar province.

There are about 156,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

When asked by Sen. Carl Levin whether maintaining the force build up would affect soldiers' 15-month combat schedules, Geren said he was unsure and cited ''numerous options'' available, including using a ''different utilization of the Guard and Reserve'' and relying on the other services for help.

''We're committed to filling the requirements that the combatant commander asks,'' Geren said. ''We have been able to do so up until now, and we will continue to do so.''

The Army assessment comes as Democrats say they are already frustrated with the existing policy.

''Who was talking for the well being and the health of the soldiers when this requirement was put down?'' asked Webb, referring to the 15-month combat tours. After four years of combat, the strategy in Iraq cannot ''justify doing this to the soldiers in the Army and the families back here,'' he said.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, I-Conn., disagreed and said the Army should do more to add soldiers to its payroll.

''We never want to be in a position where our resources determine our strategy, instead of our resources being there to meet what our generals on the ground say they need to succeed,'' Lieberman said.

Geren said the decision to extend tours from 12 to 15 months was made to ensure soldiers were guaranteed one year at home. Previously, soldiers deployed for 12-month cycles but were unsure when they would be sent back.

''I felt it was the best of the two tough choices to make. ... That decision I believe was the right one,'' Geren said.

The Senate panel is expected to approve Bush's nomination of Geren as Army secretary, replacing Francis Harvey who was pushed out amid a scandal on deplorable conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

    Combat Tours Revisited Again, NYT, 19.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Pentagon Spy Rocket Launch Delayed

June 14, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:56 p.m. ET
The New York Times

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) -- The launch of a rocket carrying intelligence-gathering technology for the Defense Department was postponed Thursday for a day.

Officials delayed it until 11:04 a.m. Friday because of problems with a safety mechanism that destroys the rocket in case of malfunction, Air Force spokesman Ken Warren said.

The payload is from the National Reconnaissance Office, a division of the Pentagon that builds and operates spy satellites for agencies such as the Defense Department and CIA.

Officials would not give details about the technology because of national security concerns.

    Pentagon Spy Rocket Launch Delayed, NYT, 14.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-BRF-Rocket-Launch.html

U.S. to Keep Europe as Site for Missile Defense

June 15, 2007
The New York Times
By THOM SHANKER

BRUSSELS, June 14 — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates made clear Thursday that the United States would not alter plans to deploy parts of a missile defense system in Poland and the Czech Republic, despite an unexpected proposal by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia to use a radar base in Azerbaijan instead.

During a session of defense ministers here, Mr. Gates also effectively secured NATO’s endorsement for an American plan to build the missile defense bases in Central Europe, overcoming the concerns of some alliance members that the effort could rupture relations with Russia.

The radar in Azerbaijan offered by Mr. Putin at the recent Group of 8 session with President Bush in Germany could complement the sites proposed for Central Europe, Mr. Gates said, but not replace them.

“I was very explicit in the meeting that we saw the Azeri radar as an additional capability, that we intended to proceed with the radar, the X-band radar, in the Czech Republic,” Mr. Gates said at an evening news conference after meeting with his Russian counterpart, Anatoly E. Serdyukov. American military officers have said that the X-band radar proposed for the Czech Republic is designed to spot specific objects in space and to assist interceptors in locking on and destroying an adversary’s missile in the middle of its flight. The system in Azerbaijan is an early warning radar, with a wider range but also less specific tracking ability.

NATO support, described by its officials as a significant step forward for the American proposals, came in the somewhat coded language typical of the Atlantic alliance.

NATO did not issue a specific endorsement of placing the elements of the system in former Soviet states in Central Europe. But it announced an effort that in essence was an agreement that the system would be deployed: a study of how proposed shorter-range NATO missile defense systems would be incorporated in the long-range American antimissile program. That American system will include 10 missile interceptors in Poland and a network of radar defenses in the Czech Republic.

“There were no criticisms by any of the NATO allies of our missile defense proposals or of our moving forward,” Mr. Gates said. “There obviously is interest in trying to encourage the Russians to participate with us, to make the system complementary to NATO shorter-range missile defenses, and for transparency.”

These systems would be “bolted on” to the American system, which is designed to counter long-range missiles, in particular a potential threat from Iran, alliance officials said.

“The NATO road map on missile defense is now clear,” said Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, the NATO secretary general. “It’s practical, and it’s agreed by all.”

A senior American official, who described the closed-door debate under standard diplomatic rules of anonymity, was even more explicit than Mr. Gates in summarizing NATO’s support. “What you see here is allies agreeing to adapt NATO’s work to the reality that there will be a long-range system, as well,” the official said.

NATO was already studying a theaterwide missile defense system, and the decision made Thursday alleviates the alliance of the financial and political costs of creating long-range missile defenses.

The NATO study is to be completed by February. Its military experts will work on blueprints for short- and medium-range missile defense systems to shield allies not under the cover of the system proposed for Central Europe, including Bulgaria, Greece, Romania and Turkey.

In an unexpected development sure to be scrutinized by the Kremlin, Mr. Gates indicated an interest in pushing cooperation on missile defenses even further into the former Soviet hemisphere of Eastern Europe by raising the prospect of future discussions with Ukraine.

Ukraine is not a NATO member, but is part of an alliance dialogue, the NATO-Ukraine Commission. Mr. Gates said that on Thursday he “indicated a willingness to share information, data with Ukraine” on the missile defense efforts in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Russian officials have complained that the proposed system is a Trojan horse designed to counter Moscow’s strategic rocket forces, although Mr. Putin shifted the debate with a proposal last week to link the American system to a radar in the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan.

At the session of the NATO-Russia Council on Thursday, Mr. Serdyukov, the Russian defense minister, “made no threats” about the American plans, said senior American officials who had attended, speaking anonymously under diplomatic rules.

While the United States, Poland and the Czech Republic are all alliance members, the negotiations on missile defense bases are being carried out in bilateral talks outside the NATO framework.

    U.S. to Keep Europe as Site for Missile Defense, NYT, 15.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/15/world/europe/15gates.html

Chairman of Joint Chiefs Will Not Be Reappointed

June 9, 2007
By THOM SHANKER
The New York Times

WASHINGTON, June 8 — The Bush administration said Friday that it would not reappoint Gen. Peter Pace to a second term as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, making him the highest-ranking officer to be a political casualty of the fight over Iraq.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said the decision was reached in order to avoid bitter hearings in a Democratic-controlled Senate that is already confronting the White House over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I have decided that at this moment in our history, the nation, our men and women in uniform, and General Pace himself would not be well-served by a divisive ordeal in selecting the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Mr. Gates said.

The defense secretary stood alone at a Pentagon podium in making the announcement, and he spoke in somber tones in describing how he fully had intended to recommend General Pace be offered a second two-year term as chairman, only to change his mind over the last few weeks after consulting with senior senators of both parties.

Mr. Gates said he would recommend that President Bush appoint Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chief of naval operations, to serve as the next chairman. The defense secretary praised Admiral Mullen as a man of “vision, strategic insight, experience and integrity.”

General Pace has served for six years at the very highest ranks of the military, for four years as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs and then two years as the first marine to be chairman. General Pace, who is 61, had made clear that he wanted to be reappointed, and associates said he was deeply disappointed. When he steps down at the end of September, he will become the shortest-serving chairman since Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor in 1964, during the early years of the Vietnam War.

By law, the chairman is the senior-ranking member of the armed services and is the top military adviser to the president, the defense secretary and the National Security Council. In that capacity, he is not in command of American forces at war, but plays a central role in shaping strategy and policy and in relaying communications from the civilian leadership to commanders in the field.

But General Pace’s reputation has nevertheless become intertwined with the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and the heavy tolls that the subsequent counter-insurgency fights have inflicted on the United States military. He has been criticized by some senior officers who saw him as too deferential to civilian leadership, in particular former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, and too inattentive to the impact of prolonged war-fighting on the Army, Marines and their National Guard and Reserve elements.

President Bush is known for loyalty to members of his senior council, including the generals who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and he risked a confirmation battle earlier this year when he successfully nominated Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the top American commander in Iraq, to become Army chief of staff.

In the case of General Pace, however, Mr. Bush "reluctantly agreed” not to seek a renomination for the chairman, even though the president “has the highest regard for General Pace,” said Dana Perino, the deputy White House press secretary.

In a written statement, Mr. Bush said, “I have relied on his unvarnished military judgment, and I value his candor, his integrity and his friendship.”

A confirmation hearing for the next chairman would have come in September, just as the two top American ground commanders in Iraq are scheduled to issue their first official assessment of Mr. Bush’s strategy of escalating the troop presence there.

In making his announcement, Mr. Gates emphasized that the decision should not be viewed as a rebuke of General Pace’s tenure, which he described as one of “great distinction.” Mr. Gates likewise said the decision should not be seen as an acknowledgment that the decline in Congressional support for the war was spreading even to Republicans.

The defense secretary, though, said his conversations with senior lawmakers of both parties had led him to conclude that “the focus of his confirmation process would have been on the past, rather than the future” and “that there was the very real prospect the process would be quite contentious.”

Although Mr. Gates acknowledged that both Democrats and Republicans had warned of a bruising confirmation hearing for General Pace, the public statements from senior Republicans were effusive. "Peter Pace has served his nation, his beloved Marine Corps, with the greatest of distinction," said Senator John W. Warner of Virginia, the ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee.

But Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Armed Services Committee, acknowledged Friday that he had cautioned against offering General Pace a second term as chairman.

“In response to a request from Secretary Gates, I solicited the views of a broad range of senators,” Mr. Levin said. “I found that the views of many senators reflected my own, namely that a confirmation hearing on General Pace’s reappointment would have been a backward-looking debate about the last four years.”

General Pace is a highly decorated combat veteran who led a rifle platoon during some of the most vicious urban combat in American military history, in Vietnam during the 1968 battle of Battle of Hue.

In the past week, however, speculation swirled that he would not be renominated, rumors coming after General Pace was forced to defend his comments that homosexual conduct was immoral, akin to adultery — a statement far from the legal underpinnings of the military’s ban on openly gay soldiers based on arguments for discipline and unit cohesion.

General Pace also stirred concern among senior colleagues that he had stepped over a line defining civilian-military relations with a letter urging leniency for I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice-presidential aide convicted of lying during a Central Intelligence Agency leak investigation.

Looking to the future, Mr. Gates noted that Admiral Mullen already had a reputation for rising above parochial service interests to focus on how all of the armed forces can best support each other. Mr. Gates said that his senior military assistant had recently been told by Admiral Mullen that his highest priority, even as chief of naval operations, was finding ways to help the Army as it carried the burden of combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over recent months, Admiral Mullen also called upon his service’s brightest minds to write the first new maritime strategy since the end of the cold war to address both traditional challenges and emerging asymmetrical threats.

Mr. Levin, the armed services committee chairman described Admiral Mullen as “ well-qualified” for the job of chairman.

Mr. Gates also said he would recommend that the new vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs be General James E. Cartwright, the Marine Corps officer in charge of the Strategic Command, responsible for American nuclear forces and computer attack.

The current vice chairman, Adm. Edmund P. Giambastiani Jr., announced his retirement last week. With the decision to name a Navy officer as chairman, it would not have been possible for Admiral Giambastiani to continue in the No. 2 job, although Mr. Gates said he unsuccessfully had urged the admiral to accept another senior-level position.

A number of respected officers have seen their career paths damaged or altered by the debate over Iraq.

Among them are Gen. John P. Abizaid, an advocate of limiting the American presence in Iraq, who retired months early from his command in the Middle East as Mr. Bush was ordering an influx of troops. And Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior ground commander in Iraq after the invasion, never received a fourth star and was quietly pushed toward retirement.

Sheryl Gay Stolberg contributed reporting.

    Chairman of Joint Chiefs Will Not Be Reappointed, NYT, 9.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/09/washington/09military.html?hp

Pentagon to Appeal Guantanamo Decisions

June 8, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:55 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Defense Department said Friday that it will appeal the decisions of two judges who earlier this week stalled the military's move to put detainees at Guantanamo Bay on trial.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the department is filing a motion with the judges to reconsider their rulings, saying that the problem is largely semantics.

Military judges ruled Monday that the Pentagon could not prosecute Salim Ahmed Hamdan and Omar Khadr because they had not first been identified as ''unlawful'' enemy combatants, as required by a law passed last year by Congress. Khadr and Hamdan previously had been identified by military panels here only as enemy combatants, lacking the critical ''unlawful'' designation.

Whitman called the issue a slight difference in terminology, that should be settled quickly. He said the motion for reconsideration would be filed Friday.

''There is no material difference between the term enemy combatant used by the combatant status review tribunal process and the term unlawful enemy combatant as utilized in the military commissions act, as it pertains to the individuals in question,'' said Whitman.

He said the department reviewed various options and opted to go back to the original two judges with a renewed legal argument.

Hamdan, of Yemen, is believed to have been chauffeur to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden. Khadr is a Canadian who was arrested at 15 on an Afghan battlefield, accused of killing a U.S. soldier.

The decision dealt a blow to the Bush administration in its efforts to begin prosecuting dozens of detainees regarded as the nation's most dangerous terrorist suspects.

The two detainees are the only ones currently in the roughly 380 prisoner population at Guantanamo who have been charged with crimes under a reconstituted military trial system.

One other detainee charged under the new system, Australian David Hicks, pleaded guilty in March to providing material support to al-Qaida and is serving a nine-month sentence in Australia.

Last year, Republicans and the White House pushed through legislation authorizing the war-crimes trials after the Supreme Court threw out President Bush's previous system as illegal and in violation of international treaties.

Bush established the specialized tribunal system shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks but had not been able to convict any terrorists because of legal hurdles.

------

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

    Pentagon to Appeal Guantanamo Decisions, NYT, 8.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Guantanamo-Detainees.html

General Tells Senate U.S. Must Prevail in Iraq

June 7, 2007
The New York Times
By JOHN HOLUSHA

The Army officer named to be the Bush administration’s war-coordination “czar” told a Senate panel today that America continues to have vital interests in the Middle East, and that it must prevail in the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Testifying during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the officer, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute, said that “America’s at war, and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan represent what we in the military call the main effort in the long war.”

He acknowledged that he had been skeptical about the current strategy of sending more American troops to Iraq and trying more aggressively to secure Baghdad, known as the surge strategy. The results so far have been uneven, he said: “Conditions on the ground are deeply complex and are likely to continue to evolve, meaning that we will need to constantly adapt.”

Although the committee was warm in its welcome for General Lute today, the divisions among its members over war policy were plain. The chairman, Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan, said that General Lute’s job would make him “responsible for bringing coherence to an incoherent policy, a policy that is still floundering after more than four years of war in Iraq.”

General Lute characterized the task a bit differently, saying his assignment was to help “provide our troops and civilians in the field with increased focus, full-time, real-time support here in Washington.” He said he would brief the president daily on the status of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and then convey the President’s instruction to commanders in the field.

“The aim is to bring additional energy, discipline and sense of urgency to the policy process,” he said.

Some senators expressed doubt that General Lute could make much difference in the prolonged conflicts. “I just fear you are going to be placed in an impossible situation,” said Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island. “It’s another public relations play rather than a significant change in strategy.”

Senator Evan Bayh, Democrat of Indiana, said: “You’ve been given a tough assignment. I share my colleagues’ concern that a good man has been put in a very difficult spot.”

    General Tells Senate U.S. Must Prevail in Iraq, NYT, 7.6.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/07/washington/07cnd-lute.html?hp

Bush Picks General to Coordinate War Policy

May 16, 2007
The New York Times
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON, May 15 — The White House said Tuesday that President Bush ended his lengthy search for a so-called war czar to carry out Iraq and Afghanistan policy by offering the job to an active duty three-star Army general who said in his interview that he had been skeptical of the troop buildup in Iraq.

Mr. Bush selected Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, currently the top operations officer for the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He will retain his active military status and must be confirmed by the Senate, which approves new assignments for three- and four-star generals.

“We needed to get the right concept, the right man — or woman — and we have,” the national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, who led the search, said in an interview on Tuesday evening.

If he is confirmed, General Lute would have the rank of assistant to the president and deputy national security adviser, and would report directly to the president. His job, which is part of a broader reorganization of the National Security Council staff responsible for Iraq and Afghanistan, would be to brief Mr. Bush every day on the two conflicts, and work with other government agencies — including the Pentagon and the State Department — to carry out policy.

In a written statement, Mr. Bush called General Lute “a tremendously accomplished military leader who understands war and government and knows how to get things done,” adding that he had “played an integral role in implementing combat operation plans in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Even before the White House had made the news public, war opponents were using the impending announcement to criticize the administration’s Iraq policy. Americans Against Escalation in Iraq, an advocacy group, issued a statement citing a remark General Lute made in an interview with the Financial Times in August 2005, in which he argued for significant troop reductions. “You simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward,” the general said at the time. “You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq.”

A spokesman said General Lute was not available for comment on Tuesday evening. Mr. Hadley said the general had expressed his doubts, but that he now supports the strategy.

“He said to me when he interviewed for this position, ‘Now, you need to understand that I was skeptical of the surge,’ ” Mr. Hadley recalled, using the administration term for the troop buildup in Iraq. He said that General Lute, who helped to develop the strategy, had raised questions about whether “Iraqi security forces would step up and contribute what they were supposed to do,” and whether the Iraqi government was committed to political reconciliation and providing economic resources.

“We developed a strategy that we thought answered those questions,” Mr. Hadley said, adding, “He’s saying that he supports the strategy, very clearly supports the strategy.”

The White House has spent more than a month searching for a high-profile general to fill what Mr. Hadley described as an “implementation and execution manager” for the conflicts.

The idea for the position has proved controversial. Some critics have said that Mr. Hadley was abandoning responsibility for Iraq and Afghanistan, while others cautioned against putting a military person in what has been a civilian role. The job was also difficult to fill, as several retired generals said they were not interested.

On Tuesday, Mr. Hadley said that while he had spoken to a number of people about their interest and availability for the new position, no one had received a formal offer until General Lute met Monday with the president.

    Bush Picks General to Coordinate War Policy, NYT, 16.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/16/washington/16warczar.html

Fighting the Terror of Battles That Rage in Soldiers’ Heads

May 13, 2007
The New York Times
By DAN FROSCH

COLORADO SPRINGS, May 8 — The nightmares that tormented Sgt. Walter Padilla after returning home from Iraq in 2004 prompted extensive treatment by Army doctors, an honorable discharge from the military and a cocktail of medication to dull his suffering.

Still, Sergeant Padilla, 28, could not ward off memories of the people he had killed with a machine gun perched on his Bradley fighting vehicle. On April 1, according to the authorities and friends, he withdrew to the shadows of his Colorado Springs home, pressed the muzzle of his Glock pistol to his temple and squeezed the trigger.

Sergeant Padilla had been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder at Fort Carson Army base here, where concerns over the treatment of returning soldiers struggling with the condition, compelled members of Congress last month to ask the Government Accountability Office to reassess the military’s mental health policies.

A letter signed by nine senators refers to “a number of upsetting allegations” at the base regarding a lack of treatment for soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder and the stigmatization of those with the condition. On Monday, some of those senators’ staff members will visit Fort Carson to meet with soldiers, families and commanders, the fourth time this year Congressional staff members have traveled to the base.

The Army, reeling from fallout over its poor handling of outpatient soldiers at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, dispatched Brig. Gen. Michael S. Tucker to Colorado to speak with the base’s leaders and soldiers on Tuesday.

General Tucker, the deputy commander of Walter Reed, commended Fort Carson for its treatment of post-traumatic stress and said he viewed the Congressional visits as a means of highlighting the base’s programs that deal with the condition, said an Army spokesman, Paul Boyce.

But Veterans for America, an advocacy group that has lobbied the Army and Congress on behalf of returning soldiers, said the Army must do better, particularly at Fort Carson, where soldiers with the stress disorder have spoken of being punished by their commanders.

The base has 17,500 soldiers assigned to it, and about 26,000 of its soldiers have been deployed to Iraq since the war began.

“Fort Carson is overwhelmed with men and women coming home from Iraq with psychological injuries from war, and there are unit commanders here who don’t understand these medical conditions,” said Steve Robinson, director of veterans affairs for the group.

Col. John Cho, the base’s chief medical officer, said Fort Carson had treated 1,703 soldiers for post-traumatic stress disorder, or P.T.S.D., since 2003. Colonel Cho disputed the assertion that problems at Fort Carson were widespread. “We’re never going to fully eliminate the stigma associated with P.T.S.D., but the leadership at Carson has been fully supportive of getting soldiers they help they need,” he said.

The Army reports seven suicides of active duty soldiers at Fort Carson since 2004 but says it does not know if any were linked to the disorder. Sergeant Padilla was not included among the seven because he died after being discharged.

Most recently, Staff Sgt. Mark Alan Waltz, who was being treated for post-traumatic stress, was found dead in his living room on April 30. An autopsy of Sergeant Waltz, 40, is pending, but his wife, Renea, believes her husband died from a reaction to the antidepressants he was taking for stress and painkillers prescribed for a back injury. Ms. Waltz is also convinced that the psychological wounds he carried from battle played a part in his death.

Ms. Waltz said her husband was reluctant to seek treatment after returning from Iraq in 2004 because he thought a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder would cost him his rank. She said the condition was eventually diagnosed and he was referred for treatment. Even then, she said, he was “picked out, scrutinized and messed with continually” by his commanding officers.

“It’s not right that our guys are going over to Iraq, doing their job, doing what they’re supposed to do, and they when they come back sick, they’re treated like garbage,” Ms. Waltz said.

Army officials at Fort Carson said Sergeant Waltz’s death was still under review and, citing privacy laws, would not comment further.

Mr. Robinson, of Veterans for America, said the group’s research indicated that since 2004, there had been at least six incidents in which Fort Carson soldiers with stress disorder have died, either from suicide or from accidents involving narcotics or medications.

In addition, the veterans group is investigating some 30 cases of Fort Carson soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, traumatic brain injury or personality disorders who have complained of mistreatment.

One case involves Specialist Alex Lotero, who returned from Iraq late last year suffering from anxiety attacks and nightmares after dozens of combat missions, including one in which his convoy was struck by a roadside bomb.

Specialist Lotero, a thick-muscled 20-year-old from Miami, said his superiors treated his diagnosis disdainfully, showering him with obscenities and accusing him of insubordination when he missed training for doctors’ appointments.

“They belittled my condition,” he said. “They told me I was broke, that I didn’t have anything left.”

Specialist Lotero eventually checked himself into nearby Cedar Springs Hospital for a few days and is waiting for his medical discharge request to be processed. He points to his forearm, draped in a tattoo of a machine-gun wielding, Vietnam-era soldier. The soldier’s face is ghoulish, his body gaunt and rotting. “This is how I feel right now,” he said.

In an interview, Maj. Gen. Gale S. Pollock, the acting Army surgeon general, said Fort Carson had taken “the bull by the horns” in combating the stigma associated with post-traumatic stress disorder.

General Pollock said the Army was developing initiatives to lessen that stigma and cited examples of officers publicly seeking treatment for combat stress as a means of encouraging their soldiers to follow suit.

“We have to reinforce it again and again,” she said. “I talk with patients, and many of them have looked at me through cheerful eyes and said, ‘You mean I’m not crazy?’ ”

Lt. Col. Laurel Anderson, a psychiatric nurse in charge of behavioral health at Fort Carson’s soldier readiness center, said the number of soldiers referred for mental health screenings had risen from about 12 percent of those seen at the center to 25 percent over the past year.

Colonel Anderson said soldiers sometimes refused her referrals to psychiatrists. “They don’t want anyone to know,” she said.

This year, Colonel Anderson began training officers to de-stigmatize post-traumatic stress disorder within their units. Another training session, this one for noncommissioned officers, is scheduled for Monday.

The Army is also considering sending a unit to Fort Carson and other bases to help soldiers navigate the administrative tangle of medical treatment. But Sergeant Padilla’s death showed that even when a soldier feels comfortable enough to seek treatment, that may not be enough.

Friends and family say Sergeant Padilla complained that antidepressants and painkillers were no substitute for talking with someone who understood what it was like to kill.

“He told me that the doctors weren’t helping him,” said his mother, Carmen Sierra, in a telephone interview from her home in Puerto Rico. “He told me that they couldn’t understand him, that he was still having those nightmares.”

A few months ago, Sergeant Padilla told his girlfriend, Mia Sagahon, that maybe it was time he start speaking with a doctor again. He never did.

    Fighting the Terror of Battles That Rage in Soldiers’ Heads, NYT, 13.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/us/13carson.html

Pentagon Prepares 35, 000 Troops for Iraq

May 9, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 1:27 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon on Tuesday alerted more than 35,000 Army soldiers that they could be sent to Iraq this fall. In Congress, House Democrats defiantly pushed a plan to limit war funding to two-month installments.

The deployment orders signed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates would allow commanders to maintain the buildup of troops through the end of the year if needed. President Bush has ordered nearly 30,000 additional troops to Iraq to quell a spike in violence, particularly in and around Baghdad. There are currently about 146,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the orders do not mean the military has decided to maintain the increased force levels through December. The Pentagon ''has been very clear that a decision about the duration of the surge will depend on conditions on the ground,'' he said.

The announcement comes as Bush is under increasing pressure to pull troops out of Iraq. Bush last week vetoed $124.2 billion legislation that would have funded the war while requiring troops to start coming home this fall. According to a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday, just over half of Americans disapproved of the veto.

House Democratic leaders briefed party members Tuesday on new legislation that would fund the Iraq war through July, then give Congress the option of cutting off money after that if conditions do not improve. Bush requested more than $90 billion to fund the war through September.

The proposal is aimed at appeasing Democratic lawmakers who want to end the war immediately and are urging leaders not to back down after Bush's veto last week. But lacking a firm endorsement by the Senate, the challenge by House Democrats seemed more for political show than a preview of another veto showdown with Bush.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told reporters before meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that ''nothing's been ruled out and nothing's been ruled in'' as he would continue to try to work with the White House.

House Democratic leaders struck a more defiant tone.

''I didn't commit to any compromise'' with the White House, said Pelosi, D-Calif.

Asked whether Democrats were still talking with the White House, Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., said, ''They know what we're doing obviously. I don't think their subscriptions to the newspapers ended at any time recently.''

Democratic leadership aides said Reid and Pelosi acknowledged in their meeting Tuesday that the House plan would be considerably more difficult to pass in the Senate, where 60 votes are often required and that the two chambers may have to pursue different tracks.

Earlier in the day, Bush met with more than a dozen Democrats, most of whom with fairly conservative voting records.

''They (the White House) seemed to be concerned about their relationship with a number of us, and I think they should be,'' said Rep. Bud Cramer, D-Ala., one of the members who attended. ''It's perplexing why we couldn't have had a couple of these meetings earlier.''

The House bill would provide $30 billion to fund military operations through July, as well as more than $12 billion more to pay for equipment, training security forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and defense health. Some $15 billion more would be provided for other high-priority projects, including $6.8 billion for hurricane relief, $3.1 billion for base closings and $2.2 billion for homeland security.

Under the proposal, Bush would have to update Congress by July 13 on whether the Iraqi government was meeting certain political and security reforms. Congress would decide 10 days later whether to end the war and bring troops home or provide funding through September.

The House would vote separately this month on a bill providing about $3.5 billion in agricultural assistance and about $1 billion for rural schools, wildfire relief and aid to salmon farmers.

''We're trying to prepare a second option so that if the administration wants to continue to just hold its breath and turn blue until they get their money, we're going to have another alternative,'' said Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., who planned to brief White House chief of staff Josh Bolten on Tuesday.

White House spokesman Tony Snow called the approach ''just bad management.''

''We think it is appropriate to be able to give commanders what they are going to need, and also forces in the field, so that you can make long-term decisions in trying to build the mission,'' Snow said.

Congressional Republicans also dismissed the Democratic proposal as unfairly rationing funds needed in combat and said their members would not support it.

Democrats ''should not treat our men and women in uniform like they are children who are getting a monthly allowance,'' said Rep. John Boehner, R-Ohio, his party's leader.

Gates and his military leaders have said that commanders in Iraq will make recommendations in September on whether the buildup has been successful and whether it should continue or if troops can begin coming home.

Snow and other administration officials have tried to tamp down expectations of the September review, although several senior Republicans say it will prove critical to whether the GOP continues to support the war.

Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, introduced legislation Tuesday that would require the Iraqi government to meet certain benchmarks within four months. If Baghdad fails, military commanders would begin planning to bring some troops home and refocusing remaining forces on noncombat missions, such as training the Iraqi security forces. Snowe's bill, co-sponsored by Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., sets a nonbinding goal of ending combat six months later.

------

Associated Press writer Ben Evans contributed to this report.

------

On the Net:

Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil

    Pentagon Prepares 35, 000 Troops for Iraq, NYT, 9.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-US-Iraq.html

Called, Increasingly, to a Somber Duty: Last Respects for the Military’s Dead

May 5, 2007
The New York Times
By DAVID K. RANDALL

A gray Dodge Caravan with government plates stopped in a section of St. Raymond’s Cemetery in the Bronx on Tuesday and three young soldiers in dress blue uniforms stepped out. Specialist Rebecca Santana, 23, carried a black case holding a ceremonial bugle. Staff Sgt. Noel Rodriguez, 26, and Specialist Ruben Martinez, 23, walked toward a mound of fresh earth amid narrow rows of well-tended graves. The three were there to serve as official Army representatives at the funeral of a World War II veteran.

Sergeant Rodriguez and Specialists Santana and Martinez are members of the Southern Section of the Honor Guard, a division of the New York Army National Guard based at the Kingsbridge Armory in the Bronx that provides military honors at military funerals in New York City, on Long Island and in southern Westchester County.

The demand for their services is rising: On some days, details of two to seven guards will serve at 30 or more military funerals.

“There is no end in sight for our job, unfortunately,” said Donald Roy, a former master sergeant who is program director for the New York Military Forces Honor Guard, which is responsible for handling military funerals statewide. Military honor guards served at 9,136 funerals in New York State last year with members of the Bronx guard serving at nearly 70 percent of them, Mr. Roy said

In many ways, the Bronx-based Honor Guard, which has 30 members, is a service without politics, without medals and without heroics. Instead, it is part of a solemn ritual that spans generations: On the same day, the Guard may serve at a funeral for a soldier killed in Iraq and at one for a Korean War veteran.

The overwhelming majority of the military funerals, however, are for World War II veterans, a generation that is dying nationwide at the rate of 1,600 per day, according to military estimates. Mr. Roy said the number of funerals for World War II veterans should peak in October 2008. “After that we’ll have a brief slowdown until we reach Korea, and then it will pick back up again,” he said.

One reason for the large volume of work is a 2000 federal law requiring the military to provide at least two soldiers for the funeral of any veteran whose family requests the service. Since the law was enacted, the budget for the statewide program has risen to $5.5 million from $700,000, Mr. Roy said.

For the soldiers who serve in the funeral details, the reasons for joining the Honor Guard vary. For some it is patriotism. For others, it is also a reliable part-time job that pays roughly $40 a day. And for others, it is a way to heal the wounds of a continuing war.

When Staff Sgt. Melchiorre Chiarenza, 37, came back from Baghdad in 2006 after serving with the 69th Infantry Division, commonly known as the Fighting 69th, he could not leave the war behind. He said he saw 19 soldiers killed in action and it was his job to identify their remains. “When I came home, they said I had post-traumatic stress disorder, and I said ‘Yeah, that’s probably right,’ ” he said. “The Honor Guard was therapy for me.”

Specialist Orlando Torres, 28, has served on the Honor Guard for almost four years, and dreams of becoming a military chaplain. “I’m a Christian, and I wanted to put my faith into service,” he said. “I pray a lot to get through this job.”

Before Sgt. Ryan Comstock, 21, joined the Honor Guard, he nearly lost his older brother, Ken, 25, an Army sergeant who was hit in the forehead by shrapnel in 2004 while driving a Humvee in Baghdad. Medics initially thought he would die, but they were able to save him, and he was taken to Germany and then to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where a ceramic plate was inserted in his forehead. All this happened in the same week Sergeant Comstock signed the papers to join the service. Military officials went to his house in Glens Falls and told him that he did not have to join, he said, but he thought not enlisting would let his family and country down.

Partly because of his brother’s experiences, Sergeant Comstock said, funerals for soldiers killed in action are the toughest. “It’s hard when you pick up the casket and feel like there’s nothing inside of it,” he said. “You see their pictures and they don’t look that much older than me, and you see their parents and they don’t look much older than my parents.”

The emotional toll of serving on the Honor Guard is constant, Mr. Roy said. Second Lt. Melvin Rodriguez, 27, said he sometimes finds it hard to maintain eye contact with a dead veteran’s relative when handing over the flag. “You see all of their emotions, and as soon as you start talking, they start crying,” he said.

Sergeant Rodriguez, who is not related to Lieutenant Rodriguez, said he adds a sentence offering his personal condolences to the official script Honor Guard members say when presenting the flag.

Sergeant Comstock said his team members often spend time together outside work. “You have to do things to blow off steam or else you’ll have kids in the mental ward,” he said.

To serve on the Honor Guard, soldiers attend a weeklong training academy in upstate New York where they learn the history of the State Honor Guard, which mirrors the traditions of the Third Infantry Regiment, the unit responsible for funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. Soldiers must also meet with a grief counselor to talk about their role in military funerals and how to cope with their work.

They also learn the rituals of a military funeral. For veterans who died with less than 20 years of service, a three-person team folds a flag draped over the coffin and presents it to the next of kin, and a soldier will sound taps on a ceremonial bugle. For those with 20 years or more of service, four additional soldiers are part of the detail and serve as a gun-salute party. And for soldiers killed on active duty, a detail totaling 22 soldiers will also serve as pallbearers and color guard, and will stand sentry over the coffin during a wake.

On Tuesday night, a team of seven Honor Guard members enacted a mock funeral service inside the 69th Regiment Armory in Manhattan as part of a presentation for about 100 funeral home directors. Specialist Santana stood at a 45 degree angle to a coffin, faced away from the crowd and sounded taps. Sgt. Comstock and Specialist Torres were part of the gun-salute party, using M-14 rifles. Sergeant Rodriguez and Specialist Martinez folded a flag, and Sergeant Rodriguez handed it to a woman playing the role of next of kin.

Sergeant Rodriguez recited the same words he had said at the funeral earlier in the day at St. Raymond’s Cemetery for the World War II veteran.

“As a representative of the United States Army, it is my high privilege to present you this flag,” he said. “Let it be a symbol of the grateful appreciation our nation feels for the distinguished service rendered to our country and our flag by your loved one.”

    Called, Increasingly, to a Somber Duty: Last Respects for the Military’s Dead, NYT, 5.5.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/05/nyregion/05guard.html

Army Chief Wants to Speed Up Troop Hike

April 29, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 3:31 a.m. ET
The New York Times

SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii (AP) -- The Army's new chief of staff said Saturday he wants to accelerate by two years a plan to increase the nation's active duty soldiers by 65,000.

The Army has set 2012 as its target date for a force expansion to 547,000 troops, but Gen. George Casey said he told his staff to have the soldiers ready earlier.

''I said that's too long. Go back and tell me what it would take to get it done faster,'' he said in an interview with The Associated Press during a stop in Hawaii.

Casey became the Army chief of staff on April 12 after serving as the top U.S. commander in Iraq for two-and-a-half years. He visited Hawaii for a few days in a Pacific region tour to talk with soldiers and their families. He next heads to Japan, South Korea and Alaska.

Casey said his staff has submitted a proposal for the accelerated timeline but that he has yet to approve the plan. He said the Army was stretched and would remain that way until the additional troops were trained and equipped.

Casey told a group of soldiers' spouses that one of his tasks is to try to limit the impact of the strain on soldiers and their families.

''We live in a difficult period for the Army because the demand for our forces exceeds the supply,'' he said.

A woman in the group asked Casey if her husband's deployments would stop getting longer. She said they used to last for six months in the 1990s but then started lasting 9 months and 12 months. Two weeks ago, she heard the Army's announcement that deployments would be extended as long as 15 months.

''Do you honestly foresee this spiral, in effect, stopping?'' she asked.

Casey said the Army wants to keep deployments to 15 months, but ''I cannot look at you in the eye and guarantee that it would not go beyond.''

Defense Secretary Robert Gates in January said he was recommending to the president that the Army boost its active duty soldiers by 65,000 to 547,000. Casey said about 35,000 of those additional soldiers are already in place.

Gates also recommended that the Marine Corps increase its active duty force by 27,000 to 202,000.

    Army Chief Wants to Speed Up Troop Hike, NYT, 29.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Army-Chief-Iraq.html

Pentagon: al - Qaida Operative Captured

April 27, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:42 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon said Friday it has custody of one of al-Qaida's most senior and most experienced operatives, an Iraqi who was attempting to return to his native country when he was captured.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said the captive is Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi. He was received by the Pentagon from the CIA, Whitman said, but the spokesman would not say where or when al-Iraqi was captured or by whom.

The Pentagon took custody of him at Guantanamo Bay this week, Whitman said.

Whitman said the terror suspect was responsible for plotting cross-border attacks from Pakistan on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

    Pentagon: al - Qaida Operative Captured, NYT, 27.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Terror-Capture.html

Air Force Said Strained by Ground War

April 24, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:20 p.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon's bolstering of its ground forces in Baghdad by borrowing money and people from its sister services is further straining an already tightly stretched Air Force, Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. Michael Moseley said Tuesday.

The result, Moseley said, is people being assigned to jobs they weren't trained for. He cited Air Force airmen being used to guard prisoners and serve as drivers and cited one instance in which a female Air Force surgeon was assigned typing chores.

''We got her back,'' Moseley said at a breakfast with a group of reporters.

With President Bush and Congress locked in battle over Iraq spending, the Pentagon is shifting money among services and accounts, including drawing down funds earmarked for other later purposes, including meeting payrolls.

''Somebody's going to have to pay us back,'' Moseley said.

Bush has bristled at a Democratic agreement to set a timetable on the Iraq war and has said he will veto such legislation once it reaches his desk.

Moseley said that over 20,000 airmen have been assigned into roles outside their specialties.

Among these, having to guard detainees is a prime example, Moseley said.

''Not only do we not have a prison, but very rarely do we have anybody in prison,'' he joked.

''So, to take our people and train them to be a detainee-guarding entity requires `x' amount of time away from their normal job,'' said Moseley.

Moseley said he was trying to be realistic. ''We live in a joint world. We live in a military that's at war. And we live in a situation where, if we can contribute, then sign me up for it.''

Still, the Air Force general added, ''I'm less supportive of things outside our competency.''

The general said that there is little money available to buy new aircraft and that the Air Force is overseeing an aging fleet, some of its planes going back to the 1950s and 1960s. ''Operational and maintenance costs have gone up 180 percent over the past 10 years, operating these old aircraft,'' he said.

On another subject, Moseley said that China was rapidly expanding its long-range air force capabilities and was becoming ''very capable.''

''They're getting the ability to go beyond just a `Taiwan scenario,''' he said.

He expressed alarm at China's anti-missile test in January, in which it used a missile to destroy one of its own old weather satellites.

China's motives remain unclear, but demonstrating that it can shoot down one of its own satellites also suggests it could knock another nation's satellites out of the sky if it chose, which Moseley said would be widely seen as ''an act of war.''

He said the U.S. is now taking a close inventory of all satellites and debris orbiting earth and studying potential vulnerabilities.

    Air Force Said Strained by Ground War, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Air-Force-Woes.html

Use of Wiccan Symbol on Veterans’ Headstones Is Approved

April 24, 2007
The New York Times
By NEELA BANERJEE

WASHINGTON, April 23 — To settle a lawsuit, the Department of Veterans Affairs has agreed to add the Wiccan pentacle to a list of approved religious symbols that it will engrave on veterans’ headstones.

The settlement, which was reached on Friday, was announced on Monday by Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which represented the plaintiffs in the case.

Though it has many forms, Wicca is a type of pre-Christian belief that reveres nature and its cycles. Its symbol is the pentacle, a five-pointed star, inside a circle.

Until now, the Veterans Affairs department had approved 38 symbols to indicate the faith of deceased service members on memorials. It normally takes a few months for a petition by a faith group to win the department’s approval, but the effort on behalf of the Wiccan symbol took about 10 years and a lawsuit, said Richard B. Katskee, assistant legal director for Americans United.

The group attributed the delay to religious discrimination. Many Americans do not consider Wicca a religion, or hold the mistaken belief that Wiccans are devil worshipers.

“The Wiccan families we represented were in no way asking for special treatment,” the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United, said at a news conference Monday. “They wanted precisely the same treatment that dozens of other religions already had received from the department, an acknowledgment that their spiritual beliefs were on par with those of everyone else.”

A Veterans Affairs spokesman, Matt Burns, confirmed that the “V.A. will be adding the pentacle to its list of approved emblems of belief that will be engraved on government-provided markers.”

“The government acted to settle in the interest of the families concerned,” Mr. Burns added, “and to spare taxpayers the expense of further litigation.”

There are 1,800 Wiccans in the armed forces, according to a Pentagon survey cited in the suit, and Wiccans have their faith mentioned in official handbooks for military chaplains and noted on their dog tags.

At least 11 families will be immediately affected by the V.A.’s decision, said the Rev. Selena Fox, senior minister of Circle Sanctuary, a Wiccan church in Wisconsin.

In reviewing 30,000 pages of documents from Veterans Affairs, Americans United said, it found e-mail and memorandums referring to negative comments President Bush made about Wicca in an interview with “Good Morning America” in 1999, when he was governor of Texas. The interview had to do with a controversy at the time about Wiccan soldiers’ being allowed to worship at Fort Hood, Tex.

“I don’t think witchcraft is a religion,” Mr. Bush said at the time, according to a transcript. “I would hope the military officials would take a second look at the decision they made.”

Americans United did not assert that the White House influenced the Veterans Affairs Department. Under the settlement, Americans United had to return the documents and could not copy them, though it could make limited comments about their contents, Mr. Katskee said.

Americans United filed the lawsuit last November on behalf of several Wiccan military families. Among the plaintiffs was Roberta Stewart, whose husband, Sgt. Patrick Stewart, was killed in September 2005 in Afghanistan.

Ms. Stewart said she had tried various avenues to get the pentacle approved. Late last year, Gov. Kenny Guinn of Nevada, her home state, approved the placing of a marker with a pentacle in a Veterans Affairs cemetery in Fernley, east of Reno. But Ms. Stewart said she had continued to pursue the lawsuit because she wanted the federal government to approve the markers.

Other religious groups that have often opposed Americans United supported the effort to have the government approve the pentacle.

“I was just aghast that someone who would fight for their country and die for their country would not get the symbol he wanted on his gravestone,” said John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, which litigates many First Amendment cases. “It’s just overt religious discrimination.”

    Use of Wiccan Symbol on Veterans’ Headstones Is Approved, NYT, 24.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/24/washington/24wiccan.html

U.S. Pushes Missile Defense Plan

April 19, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 8:33 a.m. ET
The New York Times

BRUSSELS, Belgium (AP) -- The United States was intensifying efforts Thursday to defuse Russian anger and allay European concerns over plans to extend American anti-missile defenses to Europe.

Speaking ahead of talks with Russia and NATO allies, the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said the strategic defense shield was needed to deter Iran and others in the Middle East from developing long range rockets that could threaten Europe or North America.

''Nations like Iran, Syria and others see these weapons as very valuable weapons because historically there has no been defense against those,'' Lt. Gen. Henry A. Obering told a conference on Wednesday in Poland. ''But we are at a point now that we have a defense against these weapons.''

Obering and Eric Edelman, the U.S. undersecretary of defense for policy, were to brief allies and Russian officials at NATO headquarters.

Moscow has denounced the plan to install ten interceptor missiles in Poland and radar scanners in the Czech Republic as a potential threat to its military deterrent.

Russia's Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov insisted in an interview with London's Financial Times that Iran would not have the capability to produce intercontinental ballistic missiles in the ''foreseeable future.''

''Since there aren't and won't be (Iranian) ICBMs, then against whom, against whom, is this system directed? Only against us,'' the paper quoted him as saying. He warned that the U.S. plans risked provoking a new arms race.

''Whenever the shield is strengthened, the sword is strengthened afterward,'' he told the FT. ''This is the eternal competition and here there is never going to be a winner.''

Many NATO allies have also expressed concern that the U.S. plan risks creating new tensions in Europe by alienating Russia, without necessarily adding to security because many share doubts about Iran's ability to develop long-range missiles, or about the effectiveness of the missile defenses.

Germany's government appears divided on the issue with Chancellor Angela Merkel urging NATO to take up the discussions for a missile defense shield while her Social Democrats coalition partners have voiced strong criticism of the U.S. plans. French officials have also cast doubt on the US plan, saying NATO allies nuclear strike force would be enough to deter any missile attack.

Such divisions have prevented the 26-nation NATO alliance from developing its own plans for strategic missile defense, although its leaders last year ordered further study into the possibility of developing an alliance shield.

At Thursday's talks, U.S. officials are expected to offer cooperation with Russia and NATO allies in building up strategic defenses, stressing that all could face the danger of a rogue missile attack on their territory.

''We want to cooperate with Russia,'' Edelman, said recently in Washington. ''The threat is one that they face as well as one that we face. In fact, they come within range of these missiles before we do.''

NATO is already working with Russia on plans to develop battlefield protection against short-range missiles. That NATO system, due to be ready by 2016, could be combined with the U.S. long-range missile defenses to provide territorial cover for European nations, alliance officials have suggested.

That could allay concerns that the U.S. installations would create a two-tier defense system within NATO by offering a protective umbrella to much of northern Europe while leaving southern allies such as Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria exposed.

    U.S. Pushes Missile Defense Plan, NYT, 19.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-NATO-Missile-Defense.html?hp

Army Reserve falters on recruitment

10.4.2007
USA Today
By Tom Vanden Brook

WASHINGTON — The Army Reserve, whose troops drive trucks on bomb-riddled roads and help set up local governments in Iraq and Afghanistan, is struggling to recruit soldiers.

The Army Reserve missed its recruiting goal by 5% last year and is 9% short of its target this year, records show. Halfway through the 2007 budget year, it was nearly 1,300 soldiers short of its midyear goal of 14,273.

Reserves provide much of the logistical support for troops in combat, such as transporting tanks from Kuwait to Iraq or helping local governments.

Reserve combat engineers are in demand for clearing roads of homemade bombs known as improvised explosive devices.

Before the 9/11 terror attacks, reservists could count on training one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. They might be called to active duty in an emergency.

Those days are over, said Lt. Gen. Jack Stultz, the Army Reserve's top officer.

Stultz, who will testify before Congress today, told USA TODAY that "we need to recognize that the Army Reserve has changed."

Stultz wants to deploy his troops, who hold civilian jobs or often are in college, once every five years. But he acknowledged that some Reserve units get only two years at home between deployments.

About 22,000 of the 190,000 Army Reserve soldiers are deployed abroad, most of them in Iraq and Afghanistan.

An additional 10,000 are on active duty in the USA, many of them serving as drill sergeants training recruits.

Active-duty troops traditionally moved into the Reserves after the end of their regular commitment. Now, more reservists opt to go into the active-duty Army.

"Those soldiers leaving active duty are questioning whether they want to join the Army Reserve because of (our) operational tempo," Stultz said.

That problem will last as long as large numbers of troops are needed in Iraq, said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va.

"If I go to active duty, I don't have the problem of being surprised," Goure said. "I know I'll be getting deployed, and I'll train for it year-round."

To attract more reservists, Stultz wants to assure active-duty soldiers that they'll have at least two years at home before redeploying. He also wants to offer higher bonuses to soldiers willing to return to a war zone sooner. "One of the things I have to do is offer them some stability," Stultz said.

In June, the Reserve will start a bonus program similar to the National Guard's. It will pay $2,000 to soldiers who help enlist a recruit.

"If they can't recruit," Goure said, "they're going to have a whale of a time in a few years."

Still, the Reserve has exceeded its goal by 13% this year in re-enlisting soldiers, according to the Army. More than 10,000 reservists have re-enlisted.

Stultz called the reservists sent to battle the "best trained and best equipped we've ever had."

    Army Reserve falters on recruitment, UT, 10.4.2007, http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-10-army-reserve-recruitment_N.htm

Iraq Looms Closer for 13,000 Reservists

April 10, 2007
The New York Times
By LIZETTE ALVAREZ

As many as 13,000 National Guard soldiers from Arkansas, Indiana, Ohio and Oklahoma got an official heads-up yesterday that they should expect possible deployment to Iraq by year’s end or in 2008, sooner than scheduled.

Most of these soldiers have already been deployed in the past few years, and several thousand have served at least one tour in Iraq, underscoring just how profoundly the National Guard’s role has shifted since 2003.

The Guard will be deploying newly formed infantry brigade combat teams of about 3,500 soldiers. The teams are intended to integrate the Guard better with active-duty forces, and their creation makes its deployment cycles more predictable and helps it get the resources it needs to perform its mission.

While the announcement issued by the Department of Defense yesterday was not unexpected, it moves the National Guard in these four states higher up the priority list for equipment allotments. The Guard has experienced equipment shortages.

It also signals to families and employers that they should begin preparing for another long separation, although this time the deployment is not supposed to exceed one year.

Many families of National Guard soldiers, who tend to be older than active-duty forces, have a particularly hard time coping with long deployments. The soldiers often have children, and because their families may live far from the resources and culture of military centers, they can feel a keener sense of isolation. Employers, particularly small-business owners, also feel the strain of long deployments because they have to reinstate soldiers on their return.

In some cases, families face financial hardship when a soldier deploys. In others, the soldiers wind up making more money.

Still, some soldiers say they view their deployment or redeployment to Iraq as a part of the job. The fact that they may be deploying sooner than expected, in some cases two years sooner, is not good news for them, but for many, a sense of duty prevails.

“As far as multiple deployment, I don’t know anybody who is jumping up and down for joy,” said Staff Sgt. Kelly W. Collier, 35, an intelligence analyst who is part of the 39th Brigade of the Arkansas National Guard, one of the four brigades to receive an alert.

Sergeant Kelly last deployed to Iraq in 2004. “I have five children,” he said. “It’s tough. The first go-around was almost unbearable at times. I won’t deny that. It was very, very difficult.”

“Thirty-two hundred soldiers have given up their lives, and their families have sacrificed in the hope of making us safer,” Sergeant Kelly added. “I don’t think any Democrat wants us to be unsafe and I don’t think any Republican is a warmonger. But we’ve started down this path, and I think about those 3,200 guys.”

Sgt. Matt Sciranka, 23, of the Ohio National Guard, has already served in Tikrit, Iraq. In 2004 Sergeant Sciranka was part of an engineer battalion that put up buildings and other structures. But that did not deter him from recently re-enlisting for six more years.

“I figured that there might be another deployment along the way,” said Sergeant Sciranka, who attended Ohio State University in the evening. “It doesn’t really bother me. I love the military and want to do whatever the country needs me to do.”

His mother, on the other hand, wants to keep him as close as possible, in part because Sergeant Sciranka’s twin brother is also on the possible deployment roster.

“It’s Mom being Mom,” he said. “She feels the war needs to finish up, that our mission needs to be completed. She doesn’t want to see me go again.”

Despite the war, the National Guard offices in Oklahoma and Ohio say they have not struggled to find recruits or retain soldiers. In a way, now that the war is clearly a part of their mission and bonuses have increased, finding soldiers has become less arduous, officers in both offices said.

Maj. Gen. Harry Wyatt III, the adjutant general of Oklahoma, said the alert, which should lead to mobilization orders later in the year, had one clear-cut benefit. Oklahoma’s 45th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, which was not expected to deploy until 2010, is now promised the equipment it sorely needs to train and serve in Iraq.

“There is a shortage of equipment,” General Wyatt said. “We don’t have enough rifles, night vision goggles, Humvees. We need the equipment by summer to do an efficient job.”

Of the 3,500 Guard members in the Oklahoma brigade, 75 percent to 80 percent have been deployed somewhere — be it Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo — at least once. An estimated 35 percent of the Oklahoma Guard’s troops will be deployed next year, if the mobilization orders come through.

Steve Barnes contributed reporting from Little Rock, Ark.

    Iraq Looms Closer for 13,000 Reservists, NYT, 10.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/10/us/10reserves.html

Army Is Cracking Down on Deserters

April 9, 2007
The New York Times
By PAUL von ZIELBAUER

Army prosecutions of desertion and other unauthorized absences have risen sharply in the last four years, resulting in thousands more negative discharges and prison time for both junior soldiers and combat-tested veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Army records show.

The increased prosecutions are meant to serve as a deterrent to a growing number of soldiers who are ambivalent about heading — or heading back — to Iraq and may be looking for a way out, several Army lawyers said in interviews. Using courts-martial for these violations, which before 2002 were treated mostly as unpunished nuisances, is a sign that active-duty forces are being stretched to their limits, military lawyers and mental health experts said.

“They are scraping to get people to go back, and people are worn out,” said Dr. Thomas Grieger, a senior Navy psychiatrist. Though there are no current studies to show how combat stress affects desertion rates, Dr. Grieger cited several examples of soldiers absconding or refusing to return to Iraq because of psychiatric reasons brought on by wartime deployments.

At an Army base in Alaska last year, for example, “there was one guy who literally chopped off his trigger finger with an axe to prevent his deployment,” Dr. Grieger said in an interview.

The Army prosecuted desertion far less often in the late 1990s, when desertions were more frequent, than it does now, when there are comparatively fewer.

From 2002 through 2006, the average annual rate of Army prosecutions of desertion tripled compared with the five-year period from 1997 to 2001, to roughly 6 percent of deserters, from 2 percent, Army data shows.

Between these two five-year spans — one prewar and one during wartime — prosecutions for similar crimes, like absence without leave or failing to appear for unit missions, have more than doubled, to an average of 390 per year from an average of 180 per year, Army data shows.

In total, the Army since 2002 has court-martialed twice as many soldiers for desertion and other unauthorized absences as it did on average each year between 1997 and 2001. Deserters are soldiers who leave a post or fail to show up for an assignment with the intent to stay away. Soldiers considered absent without leave, or AWOL, which presumes they plan to return, are classified as deserters and dropped from a unit’s rolls after 30 days.

Most soldiers who return from unauthorized absences are punished and discharged. Few return to regular duty.

Officers said the crackdown reflected an awareness by top Army and Defense Department officials that desertions, which occurred among more than 1 percent of the active-duty force in 2000 for the first time since the post-Vietnam era, were in a sustained upswing again after ebbing in 2003, the first year of the Iraq war.

At the same time, the increase highlights a cycle long known to Army researchers: as the demand for soldiers increases during a war, desertions rise and the Army tends to lower enlistment standards, recruiting more people with questionable backgrounds who are far more likely to become deserters.

In the 2006 fiscal year, 3,196 soldiers deserted, the Army said, a figure that has been climbing since the 2004 fiscal year, when 2,357 soldiers absconded. In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, 871 soldiers deserted, a rate that, if it stays on pace, would produce 3,484 desertions for the fiscal year, an 8 percent increase over 2006.

The Army said the desertion rate was within historical norms, and that the surge in prosecutions, which are at the discretion of unit commanders, was not a surprise given the impact that absent soldiers can have during wartime.

“The nation is at war, and the Army treats the offense of desertion more seriously,” Maj. Anne D. Edgecomb, an Army spokeswoman, said. “The Army’s leadership will take whatever measures they believe are appropriate if they see a continued upward trend in desertion, in order to maintain the health of the force.”

Army studies and interviews also suggest a link between the rising rate of desertions and the expanding use of moral waivers to recruit people with poor academic records and low-level criminal convictions. At least 1 in 10 deserters surveyed after returning to the Army from 2002 to mid-2004 required a waiver to enter the service, a report by the Army Research Institute found.

“We’re enlisting more dropouts, people with more law violations, lower test scores, more moral issues,” said a senior noncommissioned officer involved in Army personnel and recruiting. “We’re really scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get people to join.” (Army officials agreed to discuss the issue on the condition that they not be quoted by name.)

The officer said the Army National Guard last week authorized 34 states and Guam to enlist the lowest-ranking group of eligible recruits, those who scored between 16 and 30 on the armed services aptitude test. Federal law bars recruits who scored lower than 16 from enlisting.

Desertions, while a chronic problem for the Army, are nowhere near as common as they were at the height of the Vietnam War. From 1968 to 1971, for instance, about 5 percent of enlisted men deserted.

But the rate of desertion today, after four years of fighting two ground wars, is “being taken much more seriously because we were losing so many soldiers out of the Army that there was a recognized need to attack the problem from a different way,” said an Army criminal defense lawyer.

In interviews, the lawyer and two other Army lawyers each traced the spike in prosecutions to a policy change at the beginning of 2002 that required commanders to welcome back soldiers who deserted or went AWOL.

Before that, most deserters, who are often young, undistinguished soldiers who have fallen out of favor with their sergeants, were given administrative separations and sent home with other-than-honorable discharges.

The new policy, ordered by the secretary of the army, effectively eliminated the incentive among squad sergeants to urge returning AWOL soldiers to stay away for at least 30 days, when they would be classified as deserters under the old rules and dropped from the roll.

But some unit commanders, wary of scrutiny from their superiors, go out of their way to improperly keep deserted soldiers on their rosters, and on the Army’s payroll, two officers said in interviews. To counter that, the Army adopted a new policy in January 2005 requiring commanders to formally report absent soldiers within 48 hours.

Such problems are costly. From October 2000 to February 2002, the Army improperly paid more than $6.6 million to 7,544 soldiers who had deserted or were otherwise absent, according to a July 2006 report by the Government Accountability Office.

Most deserters list dissatisfaction with Army life or family problems as primary reasons for their absence, and most go AWOL in the United States. But since 2003, 109 soldiers have been convicted of going AWOL or deserting war zones in Iraq or Afghanistan, usually during their scheduled two-week leaves in the United States, Army officials said.

With the Iraq war in its fifth year, a new subset of deserter is emerging, military doctors and lawyers said: accomplished soldiers who abscond reluctantly, as a result of severe emotional trauma from their battle experiences.

James, a 26-year-old paratrooper twice deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, went AWOL in July after being reassigned to Fort Bliss, Tex., an Army post in the mountainous high-desert region near El Paso.

“The places I was in in Iraq and Afghanistan look exactly like Fort Bliss,” said James, who agreed to talk about his case on the condition that his last name not be printed. “It starts messing with your head — ‘I’m really back there.’ ”

In December, he and another deserter, Ronnie, 28, who also asked that his last name not be used, tried to surrender to the authorities at Fort Bliss. A staff sergeant told them not to bother, James said.

James and Ronnie, who both have five years of service, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and abuse alcohol to self-medicate, said Dr. David M. Walker, a former Air Force psychiatrist who has examined both men.

With help from lawyers, James and Ronnie returned to Fort Bliss on Tuesday. They were charged with desertion and face courts-martial and possibly a few months in a military brig.

“If I could stay in the military, get help, that’s what I want,” said Ronnie, who completed an 18-month combat tour in Kirkuk, Iraq, with the 25th Infantry Division in 2004.

The Army said combat-related stress had not caused many soldiers to desert.

Major Edgecomb, the spokeswoman, said more than 80 percent of the past year’s deserters had been soldiers for less than three years, and could not have been deployed more than once.

Morten G. Ender, a sociologist at the United States Military Academy at West Point, said soldiers’ decisions to go AWOL or desert might come in response to a family crisis — a threat by a spouse to leave if they deploy again, for instance, or a child-custody battle.

“It’s not just that they don’t want to be in a war zone anymore,” Dr. Ender said. “We saw that a lot during Vietnam, and we see that a lot in the military now.”

Army Is Cracking Down on Deserters, NYT, 9.4.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/09/us/09awol.html