Reality Check in The Desert

Every day in Washington, President Bush gets multiple briefings on Iraq: a military update at 7 a.m., an intelligence report after that, political briefings through the day and finally a memo from his staff before he goes to bed. But during his recent surprise visit to al-Asad air base in the middle of Iraq's Anbar province, the President got an altogether different kind of report. In a concrete building sheltered from the 110°F (45°C) heat outside, Captain Lee Hemming, a Marine Cobra helicopter pilot, stood nervously opposite his Commander in Chief and a phalanx of fellow Marines and described his mission.

For a while it looked as if the event would turn out to be the usual dog-and-pony show the Defense Department puts on for VIPs. The captain spoke as if he had spent a lot of time memorizing what he was going to say. Holding a long metal pointer up to a wall map, he told Bush what his unit had seen in its area of operations. Bush followed along, nodding. But then Hemming began to talk about his unit's new rotation schedule, and its extended tours in Iraq, and the room became perceptibly tenser. Speaking more quickly out of what seemed like nervous determination, Hemming said extra time on the battlefield allowed his unit to become more familiar with the terrain. But the shorter-than-usual spells Stateside were inadequate. "Our time back at home is very limited," he said, adding that this put great stress on Marines' families.

And with that, the President came face to face with one of the few hard-and-fast realities in an uncertain war: extended tours are wearing the troops thin. Most Marines now deploy for seven months abroad and spend seven at home, instead of the traditional 14 months back. The Army too has dropped its customary 1-to-2 ratio and extended rotations to 15 months abroad and 12 at home.

Democrats like Congressman John Murtha and Senator Carl Levin regularly criticize Bush for running the troops ragged and cite this as an argument for withdrawal from Iraq. But the President is getting conflicting information about the strain of the extended rotations. Two days before he left on his trip to Iraq, Bush got another one of his Washington briefings, this time from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told him "that families, while strained, were able to be supported," says National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe.

Whom will the President believe? As he flew out of Iraq on Air Force One, I asked him whether Hemming's words would affect his decision on troop levels. Unlike the Marine, the Commander in Chief did not stray from his script. "The main factor that will affect my decision on troop levels," he said, "is, Can we succeed?"

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