In his Friday column, Paul Krugman cited a Rand Corp. study that I wrote about on May 11, 2004. I wrote then:

The RAND Corp. conducted a study that attempted to derive what ratio of troops to population made for the most successful country occupations. Apparently, the British have set the standard for how best to occupy another country, and the study found that the optimal ratio was 20 troops per thousand citizens. Given that Iraq's population is approximately 25 million, the current total number of troops occupying the country is short by about 70%! The optimal number would come to half a million troops.

More proof that this administration has carried out this operation on the cheap and in doing so has jeopardized the success of the entire effort, has endangered the lives of all soldiers over there (shorting the presence of soldiers increases the likelihood of violent outbreaks and unrest), and does allow for another valid comparison to Vietnam (where similarly deployment of troops was initially hesitant).

Krugman writes, "we need to get out of Iraq, not because we want to cut and run, but because our continuing presence is doing nothing but wasting American lives. And if we do free up our forces (and those of our British allies), we might still be able to save Afghanistan."

Krugman then goes on to cite the study, written in 1995 by Rand Corp. analyst James T. Quinlivan. Krugman agrees with my math stating that "stabilizing Iraq would require a force of at least 20 troops per 1,000 Iraqis — that is, 500,000 soldiers and marines."

However, he asserts that the "combined strength of the U.S. Army and Marine Corps is less than 700,000," meaning we didn't have the manpower to begin with to properly secure Iraq. Worse yet, Rumsfeld & Co. likely knew this fact and yet chose to gamble human lives on the cheap to achieve their ends. To admit to the need for hundreds of thousands of troops would have made any chance for invading Iraq a non-starter.

Thus, instead do what this administration has been doing since their first day in office: lie, distort, withold the truth -- do whatever it takes to hoodwink Congress and the American public to get what you desire. It's what they do.

"Basically, we've got all the toys, but not enough boys." -- Major Mark Lister, a senior Marine air officer.

With each new day comes reports of more insurgent attacks and X number of more dead as a result. And it's becoming more frequent to read quotes and statements -- often by military personnel -- about a lack of troops.

It's widely known that recruitment goals have fallen far short and many soldiers are being kept on long after their agreed-upon time served. However, the fact remains that Rumsfeld's original assessment on the number of troops needed to properly handle Iraq has been a tragic screw-up of enormous magnitude. The lack of soldiers is killing soldiers, making those stationed in that country that much more vulnerable due to a lack of supportive and reinforcing manpower. Recall, as I wrote last year, that the respected Rand Corp. estimated that Iraq would need about 500,000 soldiers to properly stabilize the country -- far more than the 130,000 sent there.

Have you ever seen police shows where they need to get through a locked door and they often have what looks like many more officers than necessary as they ram through the entrance and quickly scatter throughout the inside rooms? Most often no one is harmed as they overrun the place with an overwhelming personnel presence.

Among others, this same truism is what's behind the Rand study. To attempt to secure any place "on the cheap" most often doesn't work, and worse yet results in more fatalities than would've occurred with a great show of force in personnel (NOT bombs).

In the next several years, there will be tons critically written about this war (hopefully, a fair share focusing on matters like the Downing Street Memo), and my guess is this matter of troop deployment (via Rummy) will become a common target for blame, and rightly so. And if one ignorantly asserts, "well, we could never dedicate a half million troops to the effort!" which may be very true, but the point is one then must reconsider the entire operation and associated thought process. The fact that we have a finite number of troops is a big reason why the neocon hawks are curtailed in their global ambitions (i.e. limitation can be good).

UPDATE: Great minds think alike. I wrote the above entry early yesterday morning only to discover this morning that Paul Krugman chose the same topic for his column. As usual, he makes several good points.

In response to the tragic mall shootings recently in Salt Lake City, the RAND Corp. has come out with recommended security measures to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks on shopping malls. Note that the RAND Corp. is the same think-tank outfit that produced a pre-Iraq invasion study specifying approximately 500,000 would be the optimal number of troops for Iraq (of course, this study was ignored). But I digress....

Needless to say, these current mall recommendations will likewise go nowhere. Too cumbersome, obtrusive, expensive. But more so, before we focus on making our shopping experience threat-free, wouldn't it make more sense to first tackle more lethal and vulnerable areas of our economy, like the hundreds of chemical plants that remain fairly open to attack?

The chemical lobby has done a splendid job at killing any legislative measures mandating an increase in security. The latest heinous example of this behind-the-scenes chicanery involves, of all people, Dick Cheney's son-in-law. From 2001-2003, Philip Perry was in charge of doing the chemical industry's bidding, blocking any potential laws or regulations from getting passed that may increase security and safety. The following describes his handy-work at the time:

“Perry is an éminence grise,” says one congressional staffer. “He’s been pretty good at getting his fingerprints off of anything, but everyone in this field knows he’s the one directing it. He is very good at the stealth move.” And, as it turns out, Perry’s stealth moves have often benefited opponents of chemical regulation. One of his final pieces of handiwork included coming up with what critics have called an “industry wish list” on chemical security that ultimately became law last fall. “Every time the industry has gotten in trouble,” says the staffer, “they’ve gone running to Phil Perry.”

The result has been that our chemical sites remain, even five years after 9/11, stubbornly vulnerable to attack.

As I've pointed out many times here in the past, states have increasingly felt the need to take matters into their own hands to counter-act the non-action and negligence exhibited at the federal level. In this case, the NJ acting governor, Richard Codey, made a decision:

In November 2005, acting New Jersey Governor Richard Codey got tired of waiting and issued an executive order mandating that the forty-three riskiest chemical plants in his state come up with chemical-security plans and conduct a review of potential IST measures. This was unwelcome news to the chemical industry, which rallied to seek Washington’s help in shutting down New Jersey’s efforts.

So who comes flying in to rescue the chemical industry from New Jersey? Yup, Mr. Perry. He works behind the scenes to somehow, someway get obscure language changed so that federal power trumps that of the state's. Mission accomplished.

My head explodes with the number of things to highlight. Let's see, the cronyism (Cheney son-in-law?), the co-presidency (Cheney basically calling the shots), slimey back-room dealings, the hypocrisy of Republicans emphasizing the rights of states to set laws -- unless special interests dictate otherwise, the continued rhetoric about how the terrorists will "follow us home" and yet the Republicans are not exactly taking preemptive measures to secure us here. Feel free to add on to the list.

Finally, with regards to fatal incidents at shopping malls, they've always involved guns so why not focus on gun control laws as a first step? Hey, it seemed to work for GOP presidential contender Rudy Giuliani....

The RAND study recommended approximately 500,000 troops before the Iraq invasion, but Rumsfeld decided to send far less (mainly because such a high troop figure would have been an impossible pill for the American public to swallow -- another example of fudging or outright ignoring intel to better sell the war).

The above aside, when we think in terms of who is vulnerable in Iraq, Americans need to realize it's not just 135K U.S. soldiers exposed and at risk each day but also 120K contractors hired by the U.S. to assist the military -- or nearly the equivalent number to troops. A total of more than 250,000 Americans are vulnerable in Iraq (not counting the additional 48,000 troops and support personnel to be sent as part of the "surge").

The unseen body bags are not always occupied by fallen soldiers.

A disturbing story in today’s NY Times about the growing lack of soldier power in the military. A key quote:

“The Army is just running out of creative ideas for coping with the level of commitment that Iraq requires," said Loren Thompson, a military analyst at the Lexington Institute in Arlington, Va. "It's clear there was a fundamental miscalculation about how protracted and how intense the ground commitment in Iraq would be."

A fundamental miscalculation? Quite the understatement. And it’s not as if facts weren’t already out there predicting the likely failure of this decision (see my May 11th post citing a Summer 2003 RAND study). This increasingly dire problem provides just one more reason for Rumsfeld to resign (it was his decision to go lean and mean).

In addition, the military is apparently forcing soldiers who have fulfilled their duty and left to come back. Isn’t this the first sign before the draft is reinstituted (likely after the November election)?

A former Army captain described this forced-back-into-duty action as "a gross breach of contract." Meanwhile, last night’s 60 Minutes II profiled a soldier who was AWOL in part due to this policy, as he protested the fact that after 8 years of properly serving out his contractual time, “the Army did what it’s done to thousands of soldiers and ordered him to serve more time because of the war.” Is this even legal? If this policy continues, I think we can expect to see more and more AWOL soldiers, which will fast become a PR nightmare for the military.

The RAND Corp. conducted a study that attempted to derive what ratio of troops to population made for the most successful country occupations. Apparently, the British have set the standard for how best to occupy another country, and the study found that the optimal ratio was 20 troops per thousand citizens. Given that Iraq's population is approximately 25 million, the current total number of troops occupying the country is short by about 70%! The optimal number would come to half a million troops.

More proof that this administration has carried out this operation on the cheap and in doing so has jeopardized the success of the entire effort, has endangered the lives of all soldiers over there (shorting the presence of soldiers increases the likelihood of violent outbreaks and unrest), and does allow for another valid comparison to Vietnam (where similarly deployment of troops was initially hesitant).