US Army readiness down, effectiveness claimed (from WaPo)

Today’s WaPo has a significant story from Defense Correspondent Vernon Loeb, in which he quotes an anonymous “senior army official” as telling him,

Four Army divisions — 40 percent of the active-duty force — will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation with relatively few ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere…

Loeb explains that:

The four divisions — the 82nd Airborne, the 101st Airborne, the 1st Armored and the 4th Infantry — are to return from Iraq next spring, to be replaced by three others, with a fourth rotating into Afghanistan. That would leave only two active-duty divisions available to fight in other parts of the world.
Briefing reporters at the Pentagon, the official said the four returning divisions will be rated either C-3 or C-4, the Army’s two lowest readiness categories, for 120 to 180 days after they return as vehicles and helicopters are overhauled and troops are rested and retrained…
This dip in readiness could have political consequences for President Bush, who sharply criticized the Clinton administration during the 2000 campaign for allowing two Army divisions to fall to the lowest readiness category in 1999 because of peacekeeping obligations in the Balkans.
“Obviously, this is much worse in terms of the numbers,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee who has called for increasing the size of the Army.

The WaPo helpfully placed the link to that piece on the front-page of its website today right next to a link to a piece in tomorrow’s “Outlook” section that reproduces the answers Loeb got to a question he asked five or six US commanders in different parts of Iraq, about how exactly they back up their constantly iterated claims that they are “winning” there.
In the lead to this piece, the editors note that these claims continued to be made, “even as attacks against U.S. forces increased across the country and a series of high-profile bombings and helicopter shoot-downs helped create the impression in the world media that the insurgents were gaining ground… ”
So then, they give the answers to this question to you “from the horses’ [i.e., these commanders’] mouths”:

From Maj. Gen. Charles H. Swannack Jr., commander of the 82nd Airborne Division, in Ramadi:

… My final assessment is based not only upon strict battle damage assessment data, but also subjective and objective indicators and assessments of cooperation of the populace, and the instincts and experiences of commanders who work among the population every day. So, using this data and my subjective assessment based upon instincts and experiences from other unconventional efforts in Panama, Haiti, Bosnia and Iraq, we are certainly winning the tactical fight against these insurgents.

From Brig. Gen. Mark Hertling, assistant commander, 1st Armored Division, in Baghdad:

Your question is a good one. It’s not as if we can start counting enemy tanks and determine how many the enemy has left after a major tank-on-tank battle or results of BDA [bomb damage assessment] from Air Support. That’s the challenge in an insurgency; it’s part of Sun Tzu’s dictum of knowing the enemy. So we have to gear metrics toward other means.
On a daily basis, we track frequency and types of attacks — IEDs, RPGs [rocket-propelled grenades], small arms, mortars, rockets — and their frequency and locations. . . .

From Col. Jefforey Smith, commander, 3rd Brigade, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne, in Fallujah:

I think it would be inappropriate for me to state the specific measures of effectiveness (MOE) that we use to assess how we are doing except to say that we have them and believe they are a good tool. The MOE is not the only tool used to assess how we are doing. We do not sit around and compare numbers of enemy and friendly wounded and killed in action and number of captured people. We do discuss the effects of our leadership engagement with local Iraqi leaders, cooperation and communication with Iraqi security forces and most importantly the effects of our dialog with the Iraqi people…

Of course, these guys are NOT about to declare in public that all the claims about the US forces “winning” in Iraq are a load of bull. Plus, in some sense, they do have a need to believe that what they are doing is in some way making a difference for the better.
But at the same time, from a close reading of all the comments in the WaPo piece, you can see a number of these guys hedging their bets. For example, when Swannuck says, “we are certainly winning the tactical fight against these insurgents”, he notably is not saying that he feels that the planners have a sound strategic plan. These guys are all quite smart enough to know that in a place like Viet-raq you can win any number of tactical battles, but if your broader strategy is flawed none of those tactical achievements will make much difference.