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May 13th, 2008 9:21 pm
Bush says he gave up golf out of respect for war dead
President Bush said Tuesday that he stopped playing golf in 2003 out of respect for U.S. soldiers killed in the Iraq war.
"I didn't want some mom whose son may have recently died to see the commander in chief playing golf," he said in an online interview with Politico magazine and the Internet portal Yahoo. "I feel I owe it to the families to be in solidarity as best as I can with them."
Bush said he made his decision after the August 2003 bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.
Bush also was asked whether he felt he had been misled about Iraq as he made the decision to go to war. " 'Misled' is a strong word," he said. "Not only our intelligence community but intelligence communities all across the world shared the same assessment. And so I was disappointed to see how flawed our intelligence was."
He acknowledged concerns about possibly leaving the unfinished Iraq war to a Democratic successor. Both Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have said they will bring the troops home. Bush said his "doomsday scenario, of course, is that extremists throughout the Middle East would be emboldened, which would eventually lead to another attack on the United States."
May 13th, 2008 8:07 pm
Pentagon Balks At New G.I. Education Bill
Defense Deptartment Worries Expanded Scholarship Benefits Would Hurt Retention Rates
(CBS/AP) Veterans groups say it's time to expand college aid for GIs, and Democrats want to use an election year to do it. Their biggest obstacle? The Pentagon.
The Defense Department is lobbying against legislation proposed by Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., that would guarantee a full-ride scholarship for service members to any in-state public university. According to defense officials, the plan would hurt its ability to retain service members because the new GI education bill would require only three years before the full benefit kicks in. The Defense Department wants the commitment to be extended to at least six years.
"We have no issue with the fact that Sen. Webb wishes to provide a more generous education benefit to troops," said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. "But we are certainly concerned that this would be eligible to them" so soon.
The Pentagon's opposition to Webb's bill underscores the difficulty the military has had in recruiting and retaining an all-volunteer force at a time when it is engaged in a war that is deeply unpopular with the American public.
Adding to the military's dilemma is the larger number of soldiers and Marines needed to fight the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Last year, the Pentagon recommended that the Army be increased by about 65,000 soldiers to a total of 547,000, and the Marines be increased by 27,000 to 202,000.
The difficulty in finding young people also can be attributed in part to low unemployment numbers in recent years. According to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, unemployment dropped from 6 percent in 2003 to 4.6 percent in 2007.
In recent months, the military has had to take creative steps to reach its desired troop numbers. A year ago, when Army recruiters didn't meet their goal, the service announced new $20,000 bonuses for recruits and up to $40,000 if an enlistee signed up for at least four years.
The Army also has granted special exceptions to recruits with prior criminal records, medical problems or low-aptitude scores that would have otherwise disqualified them from service. Senior military officials defended the change in policy as justified because they say current restrictions were so stringent that many members in Congress would have been denied entrance to the ranks because of indiscretions from their youth.
Retention rates have been less troublesome in the military, with the Army and Marine Corps exceeding their goals by large margins in 2006 and staying strong in 2007. Studies have found that combat deployments can prompt service members to re-enlist, usually because of a sense of accomplishment.
Still, the Defense Department is worried that its retention numbers could fall as service members are asked to return repeatedly to Iraq and Afghanistan and they are given too much of an incentive to leave. One particular problem facing the military is its ability to hang on to seasoned combat veterans, including those in the elite forces, who are being lured to higher-paying jobs in the private sector.
Jon Soltz, an Army veteran and a critic of the Iraq War, argues that a bigger threat to military retention are the private contractors who offer large salaries to employees willing to work in high-risk locations.
"Personally, it took me months after I got back to get contractors to stop calling me, offering me six-figures, tax-free, to do work for them in Iraq," Stolz writes on the Web site ThinkProgress.com. "I didn’t take them up on it, but there are far more who do leave to make money."
Webb, a Vietnam veteran and critic of the Iraq war, counters that his legislation would be more effective in attracting new recruits and would offset any drop in the military's ranks.
"I can't think of a better way to broaden (the) propensity to serve than to offer a truly meaningful educational benefit, rather than simply taking that smaller demographic" of those already enlisted "and pound on it" with repeated combat tours, he said.
May 13th, 2008 6:25 pm
Soldier should get objector status, magistrate says
By George Bryson / Anchorage Daily News
The Army should be ordered to grant conscientious objector status to Michael Barnes, a Fort Richardson-based paratrooper who had that request denied by the Army last year, U.S. Magistrate John D. Roberts ruled today. In a 26-page decision, Roberts concluded that the government failed to show any "basis in fact" for denying Barnes' request to be honorably discharged due to his religious beliefs. The government has four days to respond to the decision.
A native of Portland, Ore., Barnes, 26, enlisted in the Army in February 2005 and served in Iraq in 2006 and 2007 with the 4th Airborne Brigade Combat Team.
