Military readiness lowest since Vietnam War

[Barrett808]

Military readiness lowest since Vietnam War
Expert advisors to the Iraq Study Group say the U.S. military now faces a cold, hard truth: It can't muster many more combat troops for the war.

By Mark Benjamin

WASHINGTON -- Whatever its ultimate fate, the Iraq Study Group report released Wednesday should have destroyed the spurious notion that flooding Iraq with more U.S. troops might win the war. As the report makes clear, a major influx of U.S. combat brigades into Iraq is somewhere between totally unrealistic and completely impossible.

In interviews with Salon, experts who served on the study group's "working groups" explained why: The military is running out of troops and equipment. The cold, hard facts about military readiness and a 1.4 million-strong active-duty force rule out a big increase in the size of the U.S. footprint in Iraq. "We don't have enough is the short answer," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at Georgetown University who served on the military and security working group of the bipartisan commission headed by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton. Advocating a big increase in troop levels now is just political theater, Hoffman argued. "This is the beginning of the who-lost-Iraq debate," he explained. "No one wants to be a charter member of the club."

Even though the new report articulates a dark picture of U.S. readiness, some politicians, including leading Republican Sens. John McCain of Arizona and Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, continue to argue that a significant increase in troops in Iraq is needed to save the country from sinking into the abyss.

Some advisors to the study group expressed considerable frustration that the White House never lifted a finger to prevent the predictable degradation in the readiness of U.S. ground forces, now painfully apparent. Among other things, the White House could have worked early on to greatly increase the size of the Army and Marine Corps. "We've been whistling by the graveyard without doing anything to solve this problem," said Michael Eisenstadt, a study group advisor from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

(more)

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2006/12/08/troop_levels

[Monkeyman]

1. This was told to everyone two years ago in a GAO report

[roamer65]

2. Good. I hope the our military's capability for imperialist adventure...

is destroyed. I would like to see our military reduced down to a self-defense force, much like Japan's.

[Monkeyman]

3. It just about is

Not one Combat ready unit here in the US.

[Captain Hilts]

4. And the navy hasn't been smaller since before the First World War. nt

[AndyTiedye]

5. Is It Feeling DRAFTY Around Here?

[roamer65]

7. Hello no, we won't go!

I am still trying to think of a Chimpy equivalent for "Hey, hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?".

[journalist3072]

6. During his acceptance speech at the 2000 Republican Convention

Bushie promised to restore morale to the military, and he also took President Clinton to task as Commander-in-Chief.

In his acceptance speech, Bush claimed that 2 of the Army's 10 divisions were not ready for combat. He said “If called on by the commander-in-chief today, two entire divisions of the Army would have to report ‘Not ready for duty, sir.’” (http://www.issues2000.org/George_W__Bush_Defense.htm)

I guess Bush has become what he once despised then...

[Captain Hilts]

10. Like Bagdhad Bob, what Bush said was right in the long run. nt

[Porcupine]

8. I remember seeing piles and piles of damaged vehicles

on the "Monster Garage" Iraq special. Hundreds and hundreds of trucks and humvees out of action due to IED's. That was only one base of many.

I imagine that the US ground forces are doing quite a bit of walking outside of Iraq these days.

[Captain Hilts]

9. The WP did a BIG story about this just last week.

The stuff is piling up and not really being repaired.