But many experts outside the Bush Administration say that because of the fruitless nation-building of Iraq, the U.S. Army already is “about broken.” U.S. Army Chief Admits Deployment Pace ‘Unsustainable’By Cliff Montgomery – Dec. 6th, 2007The U.S. Army’s top general admitted on Tuesday that American forces are “stressed” and “stretched” after six years of constant combat, and now need a long-term commitment of heightened funding if the Army is not to return to the “hollow” force it was in the 1970s.But many experts outside the Bush Administration say that because of the fruitless nation-building of Iraq, the U.S. Army is already “about broken”.During a Brookings Institution presentation Tuesday, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey acknowledged that the current strain on the American Army’s soldiers and equipment is “unsustainable”, thanks to the simultaneous deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.But at the same time, the Bush Administration representative worked to deny the stronger warnings of experts and critics outside the administration.Casey admitted than even if the current Army deployment to Iraq is reduced and the force meets its goal of finding 74,000 recruits, the U.S. Army still would need three to four years of rebuilding and heightened funding before our nation would be capable of meeting all its military challenges.Remarking on the $17 billion of additional Army funding which Congress gave to the Pentagon last year for the improvement of that force’s readiness, Casey said: “Getting the resources to reset the force is the difference between a hollow force and a force that’s ready to do the next thing.”The Army chief, however, added that the Bush Administration needs to reduce its pace of near-constant troop action, as Army troops now spend less than a year at home between deployments. Such an incessant combat deployment keeps troops from properly training for anything else but counter insurgency operations, said Casey.But experts not working for this White House–those who do not have to pretend that the Iraq mess is a legitimate war, or that George W. Bush really does have the troops’ best interest at heart–have given a much darker picture of the U.S. Army’s current preparedness.A growing number of senior retired officers–some of whom had first expressed optimism that America’s active-duty force of some 500,000 troops could handle Bush’s “global war on terror”– now say our military strength hasn’t been this weak since 1980, when the country’s top soldier, Gen. Edward Meyer, publicly declared that America had a “hollow Army”.”The active army is about broken,” former Secretary of State Colin Powell–who also served as chairman of the Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff under the first President Bush–was quoted as saying in the April issue of Time magazine.Another highly decorated retired general who has returned from Iraq and Afghanistan referred to the situation in even more dire terms.”The truth is, the U.S. Army is in serious trouble and any recovery will be years in the making and, as a result, the country is in a position of strategic peril,” ret. Gen. Barry McCaffrey, former head of the U.S. Southern Command, told The National Journal in April.If anything, McCaffrey told the National Journal, the Defense Department has hidden the U.S. Army’s growing hollowness from the American people by employing several “gimmicks”, such as:
- Involuntary “stop-loss” authority, an action which enables the Army to force a soldier at the end of his enlistment to remain in uniform;
- The deployment of 13,000 “individual ready reservists”;
- An overuse of our National Guard as an augmenting force in troop deployments, which depletes our nation’s strategic reserve;
- And employing up to 100,000 private contractors for the fruitless nation-building of Iraq.
“Despite all of those gimmicks, young battalion commanders tell me that recruiting standards have slipped terribly due to waivers; drug and alcohol abuse have increased dramatically; the word has come down not to flunk anyone out of basic training; and we’ve increased the age limit to allow 42-year-old grandmothers to enlist in the Army,” McCaffrey told the National Journal.”And still there is a sense of denial of the problem in the Pentagon that I find utterly beyond belief.”My bottom line is that the Army is unraveling,” said McCaffrey, “and if we don’t expend significant national energy to reverse that trend, sometime in the next two years we will break the Army just like we did during Vietnam.”Only this time we won’t have 10 years to fix it again,” he added.Like what you’re reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of thee-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!
