Broken Army

According to a recent report, commissioned by the Pentagon, the U.S. Army, stretched too thin - cannot win the conflict in Iraq and may reach the breaking point because of reckless deployment by an overstretched Pentagon trying to keep up with the administration's reckless planning. Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, says Andrew Krepinevich, the retired officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract.

He concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency and also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force in Iraq this year was driven in part by a realization that the Army was overextended. Krepinevich also points out that the Army's 2005 recruiting slump _ missing its recruiting goal for the first time since 1999 _ and its decision to offer much bigger enlistment bonuses and other incentives are factors in his analysis.

"You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue"... the Army is "in a race against time" as it risks `breaking' the force in the form of a catastrophic decline" in recruitment and re-enlistment.

Other military leaders privately agree that the American military is in deep trouble, its spirit broken by declining morale in Iraq and its resolve devastated by realization that the Iraq war cannot be won. Rep. John Murtha, created a political firestorm last fall when he called for an early exit from Iraq, arguing that the Army was "broken, worn out" and fueling the insurgency by its mere presence. Administration officials have hotly contested that view with Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld arguing that the experience of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has made the Army stronger, not weaker. "The Army is probably as strong and capable as it ever has been in the history of this country.....they are more experienced, more capable, better equipped than ever before."

They are getting a lot of experience in dying and maiming injuries too. Something to crow about Don?

Posted on The Human Stain