Ill-Equipped
Soldiers Opt For
"Search And Avoid"
By Dahr Jamail
25 October, 2007
Inter Press Service
WATERTOWN, New York,
Oct 24 (IPS) - Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here
say that morale among U.S. soldiers in the country is so poor, many
are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice
dubbed "search and avoid" missions.
Phil Aliff is an active duty
soldier with the 10th Mountain Division stationed at Fort Drum in upstate
New York. He served nearly one year in Iraq from August 2005 to July
2006, in the areas of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, both west of Baghdad.
"Morale was incredibly
low," said Aliff, adding that he joined the military because he
was raised in a poor family by a single mother and had few other prospects.
"Most men in my platoon in Iraq were just in from combat tours
in Afghanistan."
According to Aliff, their
mission was to help the Iraqi Army "stand up" in the Abu Ghraib
area of western Baghdad, but in fact his platoon was doing all the fighting
without support from the Iraqis they were supposedly preparing to take
control of the security situation.
"I never heard of an
Iraqi unit that was able to operate on their own," said Aliff,
who is now a member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW).
"The only reason we were replaced by an Iraqi Army unit was for
publicity."
Aliff said he participated
in roughly 300 patrols. "We were hit by so many roadside bombs
we became incredibly demoralised, so we decided the only way we wouldn't
be blown up was to avoid driving around all the time."
"So we would go find
an open field and park, and call our base every hour to tell them we
were searching for weapons caches in the fields and doing weapons patrols
and everything was going fine," he said, adding, "All our
enlisted people became very disenchanted with our chain of command."
Aliff, who suffers from post-traumatic
stress disorder (PTSD), refused to return to Iraq with his unit, which
arrived in Kirkuk two weeks ago. "They've already lost a guy, and
they are now fostering the sectarian violence by arming the Sunnis while
supporting the Shia politically ... classic divide and conquer."
Aliff told IPS he is set
to be discharged by the military next month because they claim his PTSD
"is untreatable by their doctors".
According to the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA), the number of Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans
seeking treatment for PTSD increased nearly 70 percent in the 12 months
ending on Jun. 30.
The nearly 50,000 VA-documented
PTSD cases greatly exceed the 30,000 military personnel that the Pentagon
officially classifies as wounded in both occupations.
VA records show that mental
health has become the second-largest area of illness for which veterans
of the ongoing occupations are seeking treatment at VA hospitals and
clinics. The total number of mental health cases among war veterans
increased by 58 percent; from 63,767 on Jun. 30, 2006, to 100,580 on
Jun. 30, 2007, according to the VA.
Other active duty Iraq veterans
tell similar stories of disobeying orders so as not to be attacked so
frequently.
"We'd go to the end
of our patrol route and set up on top of a bridge and use it as an over-watch
position," Eli Wright, also an active duty soldier with the 10th
Mountain Division, told IPS. "We would just sit with our binoculars
and observe rather than sweep. We'd call in radio checks every hour
and say we were doing sweeps."
Wright added, "It was
a common tactic, a lot of people did that. We'd just hang out, listen
to music, smoke cigarettes, and pretend."
The 26-year-old medic complained
that his unit did not have any armoured Humvees during his time in Iraq,
where he was stationed in Ramadi, capital of the volatile Al Anbar province.
"We put sandbags on
the floors of our vehicles, which had canvas doors," said Wright,
who was in Iraq from September 2003 until September 2004. "By the
end of our tour, we were bolting any metal we could find to our Humvees.
Everyone was doing this, and we didn't get armoured Humvees in country
until after we left."
Other veterans, like 25-year-old
Nathan Lewis, who was in Iraq for the invasion of March 2003 until June
of that year while serving in the 214th field artillery brigade, complained
of lack of training for what they were ordered to do, in addition to
not having armoured Humvees for their travels.
"We never got training
for a lot of the work we did," he explained. "We had a white
phosphorous mortar round that cooked off in the back of one of our trucks,
because we loaded that with some other ammo, and we weren't trained
how to do it the right way." The "search and avoid" missions
appear to have been commonplace around much of Iraq for years now.
Geoff Millard served nine
years in the New York Army National Guard, and was in Iraq from October
2004 until October 2005 working for a general at a Tactical Operation
Centre.
Millard, also a member of
IVAW, said that part of his duties included reporting "significant
actions", or SIGACTS, which is how the U.S. military describes
an attack on their forces.
"We had units that never
called in SIGACTS," Millard, who monitored highly volatile areas
like Baquba, Tikrit and Samarra, told IPS. "When I was there two
years ago, there were at least five companies that never had SIGACTS.
I think 'search and avoids' have been going on there for a long time."
Millard told IPS "search
and avoid" missions continue today across Iraq.
"One of my buddies is
in Baghdad right now and we email all the time," he explained,
"He just told me that nearly each day they pull into a parking
lot, drink soda, and shoot at the cans. They pay Iraqi kids to bring
them things and spread the word that they are not doing anything and
to please just leave them alone."
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