Speaker Pelosi's blog, the Gavel, expands significantly on a NYT story today about the extent to which Bush's "surge" in Iraq is straining our military resources. The Gavel notes the following military experts expressing real concern that Bush may be breaking the Army:
Lieutenant General David Poythress, the state adjutant general for the Georgia National Guard, 12/17/06:
“There is a danger of breaking the Army, but there is an equivalent danger of breaking the Guard. Guardsmen don’t sign up to be full-time soldiers. If that’s what they wanted, they’d join the active Army.”
General Peter Schoomaker, Chief of Staff United States Army, 12/14/06:
“At this pace, without recurrent access to the reserve components, through remobilization, we will break the active component. Further, because almost all reserve component units have already been either partially or completely mobilized in support of the Global War on Terrorism, current mobilization policies and practices require the Army to rely on individual volunteers from the reserve components. This runs counter to the military necessity of deploying trained, ready, and cohesive units.”
Lynn Davis, a senior analyst in the Arroyo Center, a division of the Rand Corp. that does research for the army, 9/22/06:
“The continuing frequent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have stretched the U.S. Army so thin that there are few brigades ready to respond to crises elsewhere.”
Andrew Krepinevich, retired Army officer and author of a Pentagon report arguing that the Army is “in a race against time” to adjust to the demands of war “or risk ‘breaking’ the force in the form of a catastrophic decline” in recruitment and re-enlistment, 1/24/06:
“You really begin to wonder just how much stress and strain there is on the Army, how much longer it can continue.”
George Joulwan, retired four-star Army general and former NATO commander, 12/5/05:
“And we’re fighting in all of Iraq, and we’ve got deployments in Afghanistan and worldwide. They are stretched thin. Whether they’re broken or not, I think I would say if we don’t change the way we’re doing business, they’re in danger of being fractured and broken, and I would agree with that.”
