Three-star and four-star generals are considered to be official spokespersons for the defense department, as are their civilian counterparts. So it was more than a little surprising to hear president Bush refer to Congressional testimony and other public remarks from some of his most senior generals as “rumors” and “speculation.”

But that’s what happened at a press availability following meetings with Don Rumsfeld and Condi Rice two weeks ago, when Bush dismissed suggestions by senior generals that the US might withdraw a substantial number of troops from Iraq during the first half of 2006, and said that any decision on troop levels “will be made by me upon the recommendation of General Casey, through Secretary Rumsfeld, to me.”

Casey, the four-star general who heads US forces in Iraq (actually multinational forces, but you don’t hear much about that of late), is among the sources of those rumors and speculation, and Bush’s comments seemed aimed specifically at him.

Another source is three-star General John Abizaid, who told Congress in March of this year that he thought US troops could begin coming home in 2006 if security permitted. Casey said much the same when Don Rumsfeld visited Iraq to urge speed upon the country’s constitutional negotiators, shortly before the Bush smackdown of his generals. And Abizaid spoke up again last week through the offices of his subordinate, two-star General William Lute.

[Lute] said: “We believe at some point, in order to break this dependence on the . . . coalition, you simply have to back off and let the Iraqis step forward.

“You have to undercut the perception of occupation in Iraq. It’s very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country.”

“It’s very difficult to do that when you have 150,000-plus, largely western, foreign troops occupying the country” is at least on the surface a far cry from “stay the course.” So why are senior generals, who officially represent the defense department, publicly and repeatedly saying things that the president clearly finds annoying?

One theory is that the generals are simply part of a campaign aimed at creating the image of an impending troop withdrawal prior to our 2006 elections.

Another theory is that the generals want out. They’re the ones who have the clearest picture of what’s happening to the military organizations under their commands, they don’t like what they’re seeing and they want out.

It’s no secret that the Army in particular is under an enormous strain, with some troops about to head off to Iraq for a third one-year tour while still lacking sufficient body armor and armored vehicles.

And it’s no secret that recruiting is down not only for the Army but for the Marines as well, that latter of which is if not unprecedented, extremely rare. Both services met recruiting goals in June and July, traditionally good months as high school graduates look around for options, but the prospects for meeting the annual goals are at best, bad.

So the idea that Abizaid and Casey, among others, think the current troop level in Iraq is unsustainable isn’t a far-fetched one. And more dangerous than the recruiting woes are the retention problems among the career soldiers who keep the inexperienced troops alive long enough to become career soldiers themselves. John Hanchette, writing in the Niagra Falls Reporter, describes a situation in which the Pentagon has entered a bidding war for the services of those experienced soldiers … against itself.

Special Forces personnel — key to any eventual success in Iraq — are now being offered re-enlistment bonuses of up to $150,000 each. And these huge amounts are being spurned.

That’s because retention of key combat personnel is being eroded by far better money offers from federally hired “private security companies” — as their executives insist they be called. Once on board and back in the private sector of dangerous military operations in Iraq, these highly trained fighters and specialists can make up to a quarter of a million dollars or more (most of it tax-free) in a year’s worth of salary — certainly better than Army pay.

These men, of course, are mercenaries — professional soldiers hired for pay in an outfit other than their country’s armed forces. The “private security companies” recoil from that designation, but that is what they are, nonetheless. They are private, well-paid gunmen.

In one of its best articles of the year, The New York Times Magazine of Aug. 14 detailed the quiet expansion of these new hybrid forces in Iraq. Author Daniel Bergner writes there are about 80 private firms, maybe 100, with approximately 25,000 armed men — about 15 percent of the weapons-carrying allied personnel in Iraq — guarding big American corporations that are reconstructing Iraq. They, side by side with American troops, shield American compounds from attack, keep safe workers who are rebuilding power stations and sewage plants, guard generals, protect military bases, and hold off insurgents so supplies can be delivered.

The irony here, or the tragedy, lies in the fact that most of the private soldiers in Iraq are being paid with Pentagon money; in effect, the Pentagon is outbidding itself for the services of those key personnel.

Iraq, then, has strained nearly every component of the Army to the breaking point. And before we withdraw troops from the country, if that happens, we will first increase their number. Rumsfeld has already announced the deployment of an additional batallion or two in advance of the prospective October constitutional referendum and December general elections, and one can expect that an additional 10-15,000 troops already in Iraq will see their tours extended for a few months, bringing the total number of US troops in Iraq back up to more than 150,000, just as happened during the months before January’s Iraq elections.

Which brings us back to the first theory, in which Abizaid and Casey are courting and accepting their public smackdowns on behalf of an administration exercise in politics.

Knight Ridder military analyst Joe Galloway, an ardent advocate of the rank and file, subscribes to that theory.

So we have a president who continues at every opportunity to say that he – and we – will “stay the course” in Iraq, while his political advisers look at the polling numbers and break out in cold sweat. What to do?

Send out the general to suggest the draw-down is imminent, even as the Pentagon is announcing that between now and the end of the year we will actually increase the number of American troops on the ground in Iraq to secure the ratification of Iraq’s new constitution and election of its new parliament.

Some divisions nearing the end of their latest 12 months in Hell will find they are being extended for another month or two or three. Some divisions preparing to rotate back into Iraq for the second or even third time may find their departures moved up correspondingly. The overlap is the buildup.

It amounts to a stealth increase of forces in Iraq, done on the cheap, while simultaneously sending a signal to American voters that a reduction in U.S. forces -especially all those National Guard and Reserve troops who have borne a heavy and deadly burden in this war and whose families back home are voters – is just around the corner.

It’s enough to make a cynic of Mother Teresa.

What Galloway doesn’t mention is that his aptly described “stealth increase” may well lead to what amounts to a considerably less stealthy withdrawal when those extended deployments end and the Pentagon announces in late winter or early spring, in the wake of the public relations successes created by the referendum and elections (assuming they can be painted as such), that 10-20,000 of our troops are coming home.

It’s possible that both theories are accurate to one extent or another: The generals are genuinely despairing of the situation and its impact on their commands, and the White House are playing off their statements to create an illusion of movement in advance of the elections. The administration haven’t been shy in the past about punishing military leaders who wander out of lockstep, so Casey’s and Abizaid’s apparent job security argue in favor of that scenario.

On the other hand, there are only so many three-star and four-star generals to go around (and one less of the latter than there were a month ago), and it would be decidedly impolitic on several fronts to thin their ranks at this particular moment. Such a move would hardly bolster public confidence, such as it is, in the administration’s Iraq policy, whatever that might be, and it wouldn’t do much to reassure the military either.

Galloway ends his story with a plea for the administration to really, truly support the troops.

It can be fairly stated that many of America’s 1,800 dead and 14,000 wounded were killed because they were riding in unarmored or lightly armored vehicles that are totally inappropriate to the nature of the war and enemy we are fighting.

This while the heaviest and deadliest divisions in the world’s best Army were being ordered to leave most of their best equipment – the M1A2 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles – parked at their home bases in orderly ranks.

This while the highly trained crews of those vehicles were ordered to dismount and become infantry to patrol the most dangerous streets and roads in the world in unarmored Humvees.

We are spending $5 billion a month on this war -much of it siphoned away and sucked up by private contractors – but somehow we can’t send our soldiers and Marines to war with the best equipment in the world – the equipment we already own and know how to use to great effect.

Don’t tell me we are going to stay the course. We are on the wrong course and it only leads deeper into the quicksand. Tell me how we are going to change course. Tell me how we are going to do everything we can, spend whatever it takes, to give our sons and daughters what they need to fight and survive and prevail even in a war that makes no sense.

Amen, Mr. Galloway; from your mouth to anyone’s ear.

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