Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Iraq War: What is it doing to the Army?

From the Project for Defense Alternatives (PDA) paper Do the Forces Match the Missions? (It's formally titled "QDR 2006: Do the Forces Match the Missions? DOD gives little reason to believe" by Carl Conetta; PDA Briefing Memo #36; 02/10/06):

Reasonable people can disagree about the value of the Iraq war and whether it is being won. But no one can reasonably contest that it has turned out to be a hard slog, as the Secretary belatedly has observed. While we can disagree about whether or not the effort is driving the Army and the Reserves into the ground, no one can honestly deny that the war and other post-9/11 operations have significantly stressed” our armed forces. And no amount of “stop loss”orders, tour-of-duty extensions, or Reserve call-ups has yet allowed us to assemble a presence in Iraq able to stabilize the country.

In brief: the pedal is to the metal, but we are still not up to speed.

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