Britain almost out of troops, memo reveals

[Eugene]

Source: Daily Telegraph

Britain almost out of troops, memo reveals

By Thomas Harding, Defence Correspondent
Last Updated: 8:49am BST 21/07/2007

The head of the Army has issued a dire warning that Britain
has almost run out of troops to defend the country or fight
abroad, a secret document obtained by the Daily Telegraph
has revealed.

Gen Sir Richard Dannatt has told senior commanders that
reinforcements for emergencies or for operations in Iraq or
Afghanistan are "now almost non-existent".

In the memorandum to fellow defence leaders, the Chief of
the General Staff (CGS) confessed that "we now have
almost no capability to react to the unexpected". The
"undermanned" Army now has all its units committed to
either training for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, on leave or
on operations.

There is just one battalion of 500 troops, called the
Spearhead Lead Element, available to be used in an
emergency, such as a major domestic terrorist attack or a
rapid deployment overseas.

-snip-

Read more: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/20/ntroops121.xml

[Quantess]

1. Why can't we just say that?

[sanskritwarrior]

2. Probably because we have

200,000 Army soldiers and Marines that have never deployed to Iraq...........

I keep telling people this and no one is responding.

The active duty Army is 512,00
The active duty Marine Corps is 197,000

We have 610,000 ground troops in the Active component alone. 160,000 are in Iraq right now, 20,000 are in Afghanistan, add in our commitments to Korea, Honduras, Bosnia and Kosovo and that is another 50,000........So there is 230,000 total accounted for, the last group to rotate out of Iraq and Afghanistan comes to 105,000, and the next group going in accounts for another 85,000 troops going to Iraq between now and the end of the year......So that leaves 190,000 troops STILL available for Iraq or Afghanistan......I keep trying to explain this to people, I am in the Army, there are entire Brigades that have never deployed, hell the Chimp could surge another 25,000 and it would still leave a force larger than the one that invaded Iraq in 2003.........And we aren't even talking about the 540,000 Army National Guard and Reserves or the 30,000 Marine Corps Reservists..........

[VLC98]

3. Chris Shays disagrees with you.

This is from July 19, on CNN's situation room:

KING: Congressman Chris Shays, Republican of Connecticut, thank you for joining us today in THE SITUATION ROOM.

You were among a large member of Congress today who received a classified briefing from General David Petraeus over at the Pentagon. I know the details of that briefing, sir, are classified. But I want to get your sense.

Did you leave that briefing more optimistic or more pessimistic about the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq?

REP. CHRISTOPHER SHAYS (R), CONNECTICUT: Well, I didn't leave it less optimistic, because I haven't been all that optimistic in the last few weeks. But the bottom line for me is this: we do not have the force structure to maintain the level of troops we have in Iraq now, and certainly to increase them.

So, whatever General Petraeus tells us in September, we are still going to have to reduce the number of troops in Iraq. And that's why I think it would be wise to let the Iraqis know that now, that there will be a gradual reduction in troops.

[Paulie]

4. you including all MOS' in that count?

Including command/support staff and non-combat roles?

If there wasn't a lack of properly trained ground troops, why did, a couple of years ago, a number of the "Old Guard" ship out from their duty station in Arlington National?

If honor guard and buglers have to stand ready with a rifle, it doesn't show to me a state of readiness, especially with the amount of civilian contractors in support roles or the long deployments. It doesn't add up.

[sanskritwarrior]

7. Because the Old guard is an

Infantry unit...........there are entire Brigades that have not once deployed.......

[TheFarseer]

6. I know alot of soldiers hanging out in bases

in Bellevue, Nebraska and other places in the US waiting for their transfer to Hawaii to go through - never been to Iraq. And these folks are in the regular army! Not the reserves or the Natl Guard or something. To be clear, I don't want ANYONE going to Iraq, but these guys signed up for the regular army and should go before Natl Guard for damn sure. And the kicker is most of them are pretty damn gung-ho on the war - just not themselves going to it. I don't know why some units get 3 tours and others don't have to go.

[goforit]

5. Well, when their is NO moral justification, no one will join up!! WTF is wrong

with these dunces that are making decisions in the armed forces???

If the military in Britain and here continue to follow imperial strategies delivered by their evil tyrranists as their leaders,
then they will not have volunteers joining them.

Jumping off a bridge just because they ask you to grows old after a while. Follow Tony Blair to your death? Not!!!
Follow GWB to your death? Are you off your rocker???

[fedsron2us]

8. Britain is experiencing very serious floods at the moment

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6909633.stm

Too bad we have no spare troops to help with the relief efforts

[sanskritwarrior]

9. Why exactly should I a US Army soldier

be sent to the UK to help with their disaster relief.......Seems like an issue for them to deal with.......

[silverojo]

10. For the same reason that the world offered us help during Katrina

It's called "the decent thing to do".

[sanskritwarrior]

11. So if Britain has

a 160,000 man Army with 7,000 In Iraq, a similar number in Afghanistan and another 30,000 deployed overseas, what are the remaining 116,000 British military personnel doing?

Finally why should the US meddle in another countries affairs, we seem to be doing a lot of that lately.......