Pentagon Lies to Congress About Recruiting

No surprise here, I suppose; Rummy providing Congress something less than the whole truth about the military's manpower problems. But it's more disgusting than the usual BushCo lies because it prevents solutions that would help the very troops that they profess to support so completely.

From today's NYT:

Officials with the accountability office, the independent investigative arm of Congress, found that some of the critical shortfalls had been masked by the overfilling of other positions in an effort to reach overall recruiting goals. As a result, the G.A.O. report questioned whether Congress had been given an accurate picture by the Pentagon of the military's ability to maintain the force it needs for Iraq and Afghanistan.

"The aggregate recruiting numbers are rather meaningless," said Derek B. Stewart, the G.A.O.'s director of military personnel. "For Congress and this nation to truly understand what's happening with the all-volunteer force and its ability to recruit and retain highly qualified people, you have to drill down into occupational specialties. And when you do, it's very revealing."

Of course the wingers will say that nobody "lied" to Congress, they were given accurate recruiting figures. But of course, as the article says, those numbers are worthless when vital jobs are going unfilled. And those empty slots are prolonging the agony of the troops already there and ensuring that more of them, in those vital jobs, must rotate into Iraq and Afghanistan again and again.

The more times a soldier goes into the sand box, the more likely it is he won't be coming back because of course there are still not enough up-armored vehicles, not enough ammunition, not enough troops, not enough trained Iraqi soldiers, and now - not enough specialists including EOD (Explosive Ordinance Disposal) specialists; those guys that disarm the road-side IEDs that are killing so many of our soldiers.

Tell me again how that is considered "Supporting the Troops."