Its official now! US decides to tackle the mess in Iraq and the ‘possible’ mess is Afghanistan with enhanced military policies. The US administration yesterday announced that US troops will now serve up to 15 months in Iraq and Afghanistan instead of the usual 12-month tours under new defence department rules.

What does this mean?

Basically, in order to adequately support the ongoing missions in both war ravaged nations, US is now having to devise new plans. This is one of them. The new policy apart from anything else, is major evidence that US is feeling the pressure, and has felt the need to change the way it has been dealing with situations till now.

Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Democrat Joseph Biden said the decision was

an urgent warning that the administration’s Iraq policy cannot be sustained without doing terrible long-term damage to our military

America is realising that the current 145,000 troops deployed are not enough given the so called ’surge’ in Iraq. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said that

I think that what this recognises, though, is that our forces are stretched There is no question about that... What we are trying to do here is to provide some long-term predictability for the soldiers and their families

Rotation Goal

A major concern with longer deployments remains the rising stress levels which could be experienced among the troops. To tackle this, the administration has decided that soldiers will be allowed a minimum of 12 months at home bases upon return. Mr Gates says that this is because the US is most concerned about the long term well being of its troops and wants to ensure that in the long term, these strains do not “break” the US army.

Therefore, by guaranteeing 12-month periods of rest and re-training between tours in Iraq, and by increasing the size of the US army and marines, it seems Mr Gates hopes to avoid much more serious problems a few years down the line. In my view this has bleak chances of working as the troops have already been under extreme pressure, and the news of staying even longer may lessen their morale considerably.

Also, it should be noted that although there is a theoretical clause of rotation, the Pentagon has been struggling to meet its own guidelines regarding the time troops get to spend at home. So now what will change? With greater pressure won’t the chances of the troops actually getting the time off also decrease?

Above all, the signal that US is ‘feeling’ the pressure and so much as to have acted so drastically upon it is news enough.

Via: BBC