March 1, 2007

Iraq 101: Putting A GI Back Together Again

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Breaking
the Army…

Half of American
soldiers think we are likely to succeed in Iraq; more than 1/3 say we
shouldn’t have invaded in the first place. It costs $275,000 to deploy
a soldier in Iraq for a year. It costs $5,840 to feed him. Army doctrine
recommends deploying 20 soldiers for every 1,000 residents of an area
with insurgents in it. Baghdad, a city of 6 million, would require 120,000
troops; 20,000 are there now. Nearly 1/3 of the troops deployed in Iraq
and Afghanistan have served multiple tours. “I don’t think they can sustain
the rotations the way they are right now without really starting to have
severe readiness issues in the Army much more than another year,” said
retired Brig. General David Grange in December. Some military equipment
used in Iraq has experienced the equivalent of 27 years of use in 3 years.
It costs $17 billion a year to replace worn and lost equipment.

…and
the National Guard and Reserves

The Pentagon
has ordered the National Guard to transfer $1.76 billion worth of equipment
to the Army. Transferring gear overseas has left domestic Guard units
with 1/3 of their essential combat equipment. 7,040 Army National Guard
soldiers were deployed to Vietnam; 126 died. More than 100,000 have served
in Iraq so far; 392 have died. Deploying reservists in Iraq costs the
U.S. economy almost $4 billion in lost productivity annually.

The
Home Front

The death
rate for soldiers from rural areas is 60% higher than that for soldiers
from cities. Between 2003 and 2005, Army divorces increased by 14%. The
Miles Foundation reports that calls to its domestic violence hot line
for military spouses jumped from 50 to 600 per month after the start of
the Iraq War. In 2004, 1 out of 5 military spouses said they had signed
up for government assistance to make ends meet. The wife of a New York
National Guardsman deployed to Iraq applied for food stamps while raising
three kids on $19,000 a year. “His monthly military salary does not cover
one monthly mortgage payment.”

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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