MILITARY MIGHT

Soldiers from Maine, reportedly due to leave the region within hours, have been ordered to stay in the Middle East indefinitely due to last week’s escalation of violence in Iraq. Many of the U.S. troops now in limbo are members of reserve and National Guard units, not full-time military units.

This has prompted Sen. Susan Collins and others to call for more troops to be sent to Iraq and for less reliance on reserve and guard units. She is right. Reserve and National Guard troops make up more than one-third of the American military personnel serving in Iraq, the largest deployment of these forces since World War II. While those who signed up with the Reserves and National Guard knew they could be sent overseas, many did not expect those deployments to last a year or more and fewer still expected to be sent away twice within 12 months.

The most recent unit from Maine to learn that it will remain in the Middle East is the 94th Military Police Company based in Saco. The unit had moved from Iraq to Kuwait two weeks ago and was said to be within hours of leaving this weekend when the orders to stay were issued. The unit has been deployed for 21/2 of the past four years, first in Bosnia and now in Iraq.

The delayed departures from the Middle East stem from miscalculations made before U.S. troops even set foot in Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney last March predicted that the soldiers would be “greeted as liberators.” He went on to say Iraqi soldiers would not “put up much struggle” and that the fighting would last “weeks rather than months.”

A year later, such predictions have proven tragically false, but U.S. plans have not been altered to meet reality. Until the brutal attacks on U.S. contractors in Fallujah and the uprisings in southern Iraq, the Pentagon talked of reducing troop strength there.

On Monday, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the U.S. Central Command, told reporters that he has requested reinforcements in the form of two U.S. combat brigades, or at least 10,000 soldiers, bringing U.S. troop strength in Iraq to about 125,000 in the coming months.

Gen. Abizaid did not say where the additional troops would come from. “The answer is not to expand the stays of the very weary reservists and National Guardsmen who have already been there for a year. The answer is to redeploy American troops from other areas,” Sen. Collins said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” As for other areas where U.S. soldiers could be drawn from, Sen. Collins, who is on the Senate Armed Services Committee, suggested that United Nations and other European troops take over responsibility for security in Bosnia and Kosovo.

According to the Office of the Secretary of the Defense, there are 3,041 American service members in Bosnia and 319 in Kosovo. This would free up some American troops for duty in Iraq, but many more would be needed. Sen. Collins also called for increased involvement of United Nations troops. This is also necessary if the United States is to be seen as anything other than an unwelcome occupying force.

Complicating the situation further is a planned June 30 hand-over of control of the country to an Iraqi governing authority. Gen. Abizaid criticized Iraqi soldiers for not helping quell the uprising in Fallujah. If that is the case, it is hard to believe the Iraqis are ready to quell the rebellious factions within the country. None of this bodes well for the 94th or other units hoping for a timely return to America.