From: "Mark" 

Whatever. The fact is they're commissioning the reports and acting on them
as appropriate -- a far cry from the "Rumsfeld doesn't listen"
argument put forth by the left continiously.

Ah well, at least it's a new name to float about instead of the tired old
"Zinni" and "Shinseki" canards.

"Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
news:43d6cf7c$1{at}w3.nls.net...
> The report doesn't claim the Army is broken just that it's under a large
> amount of strain.  We do live in a somewhat free society and until
> politicians succeed in classifying everything negative thankfully we will
> be able to read reports such as this.
>
>
> "Mark"  wrote in message
news:43d6c9d2$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>> Let's see, the Pentagon commissioned a report, the report tells them
>> things, they evaluate those things and take action (or not, because
>> certainly this is not the only report they have on their table). What's
>> to decry?  And although, a quick googling of the guy leads me to believe
>> that I disagree with most of his positions, it still seems that it's good
>> that Rumsfeld is looking for input, doesn't it?
>>
>> I do think it's pretty dumb for these reports (and the Murthaesque
>> evaluations) that the Army is broken, which is certainly not a foregone
>> conclusion, to be bandied about publicly given the Iran situation -- what
>> is the purpose, to encourage the Mullahs to defy the world? > know Europe has no military capability>
>>
>> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
>> news:43d6c32c$1{at}w3.nls.net...
>>> So will Pentagon commissioned reports  join the MSM ones that the
>>> Bushies love to decry ?
>>>
>>> http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1536797&page=2
>>>
>>>
>>> WASHINGTON Jan 24, 2006 - Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq
>>> and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green
line" that could snap
>>> unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon.
>>>
>>> Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a
>>> Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of
>>> troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the
>>> insurgency. He 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.
>>>
>>> As evidence, Krepinevich points to 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.
>>>
>>> "You really begin to wonder just how much stress and
strain there is on
>>> the Army, how much longer it can continue," he said in an
interview. He
>>> added that the Army is still a highly effective fighting force and is
>>> implementing a plan that will expand the number of combat brigades
>>> available for rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan.
>>>
>>> The 136-page report represents a more sobering picture of the Army's
>>> condition than military officials offer in public. While not released
>>> publicly, a copy of the report was provided in response to an Associated
>>> Press inquiry.
>>>
>>> Illustrating his level of concern about strain on the Army, Krepinevich
>>> titled one of his report's chapters, "The Thin Green Line."
>>>
>>> He wrote 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.
>>>
>>> Col. Lewis Boone, spokesman for Army Forces Command, which is
>>> responsible for providing troops to war commanders, said it
would be "a
>>> very extreme characterization" to call the Army broken. He said his
>>> organization has been able to fulfill every request for troops that it
>>> has received from field commanders.
>>>
>>> The Krepinevich assessment is the latest in the debate over whether the
>>> wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have worn out the Army, how the strains can
>>> be eased and whether the U.S. military is too burdened to defeat other
>>> threats.
>>>
>>> Rep. John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and Vietnam veteran, created
>>> a political storm 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.
>>>
>>> George Joulwan, a retired four-star Army general and former NATO
>>> commander, agrees the Army is 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," Joulwan told CNN last month.
>>>
>>> Krepinevich did not conclude that U.S. forces should quit Iraq now, but
>>> said it may be possible to reduce troop levels below 100,000 by the end
>>> of the year. There now are about 136,000, Pentagon officials said
>>> Tuesday.
>>>
>>> For an Army of about 500,000 soldiers not counting the thousands of
>>> National Guard and Reserve soldiers now on active duty the commitment of
>>> 100,000 or so to Iraq might not seem an excessive burden. But because
>>> the war has lasted longer than expected, the Army has had to regularly
>>> rotate fresh units in while maintaining its normal training efforts and
>>> reorganizing the force from top to bottom.
>>>
>>> Krepinevich's analysis, while consistent with the conclusions of some
>>> outside the Bush administration, is in stark contrast with the public
>>> statements of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior Army
>>> officials.
>>>
>>> Army Secretary Francis Harvey, for example, opened a Pentagon news
>>> conference last week by denying the Army was in trouble.
"Today's Army
>>> is the most capable, best-trained, best-equipped and most experienced
>>> force our nation has fielded in well over a decade," he
said, adding
>>> that recruiting has picked up.
>>>
>>> Rumsfeld has argued 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," he said in an appearance at the
Paul H. Nitze
>>> School of Advanced International Studies in Washington on Dec.
5. "They
>>> are more experienced, more capable, better equipped than ever
before."
>>>
>>> Krepinevich said in the interview that he understands why Pentagon
>>> officials do not state publicly that they are being forced to reduce
>>> troop levels in Iraq because of stress on the Army. "That
gives too much
>>> encouragement to the enemy," he said, even if a number of
signs, such as
>>> a recruiting slump, point in that direction.
>>>
>>> Krepinevich is executive director of the Center for Strategic and
>>> Budgetary Assessments, a nonprofit policy research institute
>>>
>>> He said he concluded that even Army leaders are not sure how much longer
>>> they can keep up the unusually high pace of combat tours in Iraq before
>>> they trigger an institutional crisis. Some major Army divisions are
>>> serving their second yearlong tours in Iraq, and some smaller units have
>>> served three times.
>>>
>>> Michael O'Hanlon, a military expert at the private Brookings
>>> Institution, said in a recent interview that "it's a
judgment call"
>>> whether the risk of breaking the Army is great enough to warrant
>>> expanding its size.
>>>
>>> "I say yes. But it's a judgment call, because so far the Army isn't
>>> broken," O'Hanlon said.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>

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