120,000 additional American troops being sent to Iraq.

[John Corn]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/03/27/sprj.irq.war.main/index.html

As President Bush declared the war in Iraq would last "however long it takes to win," the Pentagon announced Thursday 120,000 additional troops were being deployed to the region.

Twenty thousand troops from the U.S. 4th Infantry Division will leave Fort Hood, Texas, for Iraq in the next few days, and another 100,000 ground troops have received deployment orders and will head to the Persian Gulf region next month, Pentagon officials said.

The new troops will also include more heavy mechanized divisions, the officials said.

[Roger]

This is sad news.

[Karl Foster]

These troops have had orders for weeks/months now. Many are Guard/Reserve troops who are sitting on bases all over the country waiting to go. Bases such as Ft. Carson, Ft. Hood, Ft. Lewis, etc. are so full of activated Guardsmen/Reservists that many are being deployed directly from their home states, not from active military bases. Many Utah National Guardsmen are with their units sitting at bases all over the US waiting for their orders to go overseas.

While CNN seems shocked, the military community is not. Like I said, these thousands of troops are aleady activated and ready for immediate deployment, and have been for quite some time. I can't go into specific details, but this "callup" has been going on for a while now, and isn't a panic callup. It has been going on long before the ground war started.

[BobMurdoch]

The more land they secure, the greater number of people needed to secure it.

It did not make tactical sense to call up EVERYONE at once as the early war may have gone differently and required less manpower, but the plan would logically not add more of a drain on resources on the supply chain until they were needed. Most of the complaints about insufficient troop strength would have been negated by the addition of the ground troops from Turkey, but as this avenue was closed rather late in the buildup, they had to improvise with the Airborne deployment and primary ground route from Kuwait.

C'Mon people. It's only been a week. At one point Iraq had the 4th largest army in the world after the US, Russia, and China. No one except the media had any delusion thatthis would be another 7 day war. In my mind if they accomplish their objective within 3 months it will be a huge success given the nature of the entrenched troops in the cities. If anything, I wish they would slow down and allow proper strengthening of their forces. These soldiers have been racing towards Baghdad at a breakneck pace. This creates weaknesses in the flanks and the supply chain. Surround Baghdad and pick away at any obvious targets that become available. Feed and care for the people in the outlying cities and wait for word to spread back to the capital.

People are surprised that the people have not revolted against the regime. Why? Anyone who has spoken out is quickly executed. The people have been broken and believe anything that the regime is telling them. The Arab media doesn't help either by proclaiming the regime's "truths" even in the face of evidence presented by independent media. It was a stroke of genius to allow the world media to be embedded with the troops. The chances of the media showing something undesirable are outweighed by the necessity of having an independent voice verify anything they see. Otherwise, the US will be in a can't win situation where they will either find no weapons of mass destruction and be blamed or ACTUALLY find something and have it be dismissed as a creation of the CIA. Even The CBS show "The Agency" regularly pokes fun at the CIA's ability to create evidence to suit their needs. Even at this point, the Arab media will either ignore any press findings or insinuate that the US fabricated it and arranged for the press to "find" it along with our troops.

[James_F]

So much for being able to fight North Korea and Iraq at the same time. I guess we can expect North Korea to start testing their Ballistic Missiles this weekend.

[Karl Foster]

Trust me. Nobody has forgotten about N Korea. Not everyone being deployed is going to the Persian Gulf.

[Neil Derryberry]

We can fight a war on 2 fronts, although I don't think N. Korea is doing anything more than saber rattling. I don't think we have even 1/3 of our active military combat-activated.

[xxxx]

Originally posted by Roger
This is sad news.

But hardly unexpected.

This is an old well used move by politicans to get support for a war from their population.

Tell them it will be a quick war requiring a relatively small light force. After the war starts and the inevitable happens - more troops, time and money needed.

After all who will deny that more is needed in the midst of battle.

[BobMurdoch]

Originally posted by James_F
So much for being able to fight North Korea and Iraq at the same time. I guess we can expect North Korea to start testing their Ballistic Missiles this weekend.

No problem, we'll just have the Patriot 3 shoot it down.

Oh and we can turn North Korea into a parking lot for South Korea as the aggressor sets the rules of engagement by using nukes first. Launching a nuclear weapon against us invites 100 similar missiles in return.

I too laughed at Bush when he first announced his anti missile plans. He's starting to look pretty prescient at this point.

[Jacob S]

How many people do we have in the forces?