Officers say military weakened, not broken, by Iraq and Afghanistan

[The Straight Story]

Officers say military weakened, not broken, by Iraq and Afghanistan
By Kevin Friedl NationalJournal.com February 20, 2008

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have weakened the military, stretching it dangerously thin. The civilian leadership has imposed unrealistic expectations on the armed forces, particularly in rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure. Iran and China, not Iraq or the U.S., have been the biggest beneficiaries of the 2003 invasion.

Those aren't talking points from the latest anti-war rally; they're the opinions of over 3,400 active duty and retired military officers who took part in a just-released survey from Foreign Policy magazine and the Center for a New American Security, a centrist think tank. About one-tenth of those polled are active-duty officers, and roughly the same proportion have served in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Three out of five told pollsters the military is weaker now than it was five years ago, a decline they attributed primarily to the pace of troop deployments overseas, the civilian leadership and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Nearly nine in 10 said the Iraq war had stretched the military "dangerously thin."

Concern centered in particular on the front-line soldiers in the Army and Marine Corps; those service branches were rated less ready to complete missions overseas than were the Navy and Air Force. Only a third of the officers said the equipment and protection provided to U.S. troops in the current conflicts are adequate, and three-quarters said the civilian leadership has set unreasonable goals for the military in Iraq. Four in five told survey-takers it would be unreasonable to ask the military to wage another war somewhere else while troops are still deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=39329&dcn=todaysnews

[ThomWV]

1. I watched the release on C-Span. There were disturbing parts

One of the authors was visibly shaken by the 44% (as I recall) of Officers who thought that torture was OK under some circumstances. He said it was contrary to everything America stood for and he found it deeply troubling and suprising that so many officers saw it in the light they did.