If more duty calls, can US military deliver?

As President Bush presses his case for military action against Iraq, critics argue that a campaign to topple Saddam Hussein would constitute a dangerous distraction from the ongoing war on terrorism.

Yet from a purely military perspective, would invading Iraq stretch US forces thin? Already, as they prepare for such action, senior military officials acknowledge that certain essential assets are "high demand, low density" – in other words, in short supply.

That doesn't mean an invasion couldn't go forward. Senior military officials insist that US forces are sized and arrayed to win two major wars at a time while also covering smaller contingencies.

But in practice, expanding military commitments are straining certain resources. Areas that are stretched thin include US Special Operations Forces, military linguists and police, Air Force cargo and refueling planes, unmanned surveillance drones, and precision-guided bombs, military officials say.

"We have a lot of forces really busy," says Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Richard Myers. "You can go to any community in armed forces, you can pick out pieces of it that area working very hard right now just because of the nature of the requirements."

Special Operations units are one of the key US forces "in limited supply," says Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. "We need to see that we have the right numbers in the right places," given the extensive role of the elite units in counterterrorism operations around the globe. To increase the numbers, marines will soon be drawn into the Special Operations Command for the first time. Meanwhile, where possible, conventional military units will take over activities carried out by Special Operations troops, such as searching caves in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials say.

"Say you're in Afghanistan today and Yemen today and Iraq tomorrow," says one Army official. "Pretty soon, you will be overextended, and you can't grow [Special Operations Forces] overnight."

The 9,000 US Army Special Forces soldiers, known as Green Berets, are in especially high demand. Trained linguists with cultural skills for working overseas, they have been at the forefront of the Pentagon's antiterror strategy.

Only the 5th Special Forces Group, based at Ft. Bragg, N.C., is specialized in the Middle East and Central Asia. Of the group's 1,200 to 1,300 people, fewer than 650 serve on the Green Beret A teams. The rest are support troops or commanders, says Maj. Gary Kolb of US Army Special Operations Command. At the peak of the Afghanistan campaign, about 324 men on Green Beret A teams were deployed in the country, Major Kolb says.

Several efforts are under way to bolster Army Special Forces. A "stop loss" order now bars Green Berets from leaving the service. Meanwhile, an additional 400 people recruited from outside the Army to become Green Berets are undergoing training.

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