Well now, what does Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Dumbya

[whistle]

...have to say about this kettle of fish? D R A F T!!! :wtf:

<snip>
war stories
Won't Deploy? Can't Deploy.
There are no more troops to send to Iraq.
By Daniel Benjamin and Michèle A. Flournoy
Posted Thursday, Sept. 14, 2006, at 2:01 PM ET

Earlier this week, in a Washington Post op-ed, William Kristol and Rich Lowry called on the Bush administration to send more troops to Iraq. Coming one day before 62 Iraqis turned up tortured and shot in Baghdad and a couple of dozen more were blown up by car bombs, their argument that more American boots on the ground are necessary—though not sufficient—to halt the bloodbath has a compelling logic, even for many who think the war was a mistake. It isn't clear that any conceivable increase in troops could stem the tide of sectarian violence, but it is, at least, a serious argument and a welcome counterpoint to the White House's incessant calls for staying a course that is leading to disaster.

The only problem with Kristol and Lowry's recommendation is that it is premised on an illusion: In fact, there are no more troops to send to Iraq.

That is the unmistakable message of an Army briefing making the rounds in Washington. According to in-house assessments, fully two-thirds of the Army's operating force, both active and reserve, is now reporting in as "unready"—that is, they lack the equipment, people, or training they need to execute their assigned missions. Not a single one of the Army's Brigade Combat Teams—its core fighting units—currently in the United States is ready to deploy. In short, the Army has no strategic reserve to speak of. The other key U.S. fighting force in Iraq, the Marine Corps, is also hurting, with much of its equipment badly in need of repair or replacement.

In terms of ground-force readiness, the United States is in worse shape than at any time since the aftermath of Vietnam, when revelations about a "hollow" military sparked defense buildups from the Carter and then Reagan administrations. While most press coverage of the Iraq conflict has understandably focused on loss of life and the damage done in that country by the insurgency, the readiness of the U.S. military has also been a casualty.

From early on, military experts said that with roughly 140,000 troops in Iraq, the existing Army and Marine Corps was sufficient to prosecute the war for a couple of rotations after the invasion but that the force would need to be supplemented to sustain a longer war. Now those rotations have come and gone, and many units are on their second and even third tours in Iraq. Many active-duty soldiers and Marines are doing near back-to-back deployments, often with less than a year at home. This relentless tempo of operations, combined with the public's doubts about the war, has hurt the military's recruiting efforts and may contribute to higher than expected numbers of officers and enlisted personnel leaving the service in the future. Had President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld heeded early calls from Congress and experts from the center and the right to grow the size of the Army and Marine Corps, the current strains on the force could have been avoided.
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Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2149684/

[savemefromdumbya]

1. I've often wondered how they are going to invade Iran without troops?

[Virginia Dare]

3. It's the same scenario as Iraq...

they only listen to the people who tell them what they want to hear.

[savemefromdumbya]

4. They obvoiusly think american people are stupid

at least 1/3 are

[cspanlovr]

2. What a bunch of fuck ups they are. Excuse my french.

[whistle]

5. A very apt description which in turn suggests that the American

...people have been fucked by these fuck ups. :wtf: Now the mess this creates along with all the other fuck ups in the federal budget, social security, national debt, U.S. dollar, economy, division of Americans really is going to require national leadership of an extraordinary nature to solve.