Report done for Pentagon says Army close to 'snapping'
But Rumsfeld says report's conclusions are 'inconsistent with the facts.'
An unreleased report prepared for the Pentagon says that the
US Army has become a "thin green line" because of rapid troop deployments to Iraq, and could soon snap.
The
Associated Press reports that retired Lt. Col. Andrew Krepinevich, a Vietnam veteran and former adviser to three defense secretaries who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, also concluded that the US cannot maintain the rate of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to defeat the insurgency in that country. While the 136-page report was not released publicly, a copy of it was obtained by
AP. It was presented to the Pentagon last November at a cost of $137,000.
Krepinevich did not conclude that the US should leave Iraq, but he did say that it should be possible to reduce troop levels below 100,000 by the end of the year. There are currently 136,000 US troops in Iraq.
Krepinevich is not the first retired officer to suggest that the Army is overtaxed, according to the AP. 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.
The Guardian reports that Krepinevich, who runs a Washington think tank, the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, also says the administration
lacks a clear strategy for Iraq.
In his report presented as "an interim assessment" of the Iraq, he writes: "Without a clear strategy in Iraq it is difficult to draft clear metrics for gauging progress. This may be why some senior political and military leaders have made overly optimistic or even contradictory declarations regarding the war's progress."
The Daily Telegraph reports that Krepinevich is "
a respected figure and well known as the promoter of the so-called oil-spot strategy for beating Iraqi insurgencies."
This is based on the success of British forces in Malaya in the 1950s and calls for American forces not to hunt down insurgents but to secure specific towns and make life so good there that no one will want to support the rebels. The Telegraph also writes that the "political dimensions" of the issue became apparent yesterday when Democrats also released a report on the situation of the US Army and Marines in Iraq. The
Financial Times reports that Madeleine Albright, a former secretary of State; William Perry, a former secretary of Defense; and Jack Reed, a member of the Senate Armed Services committee, said the administration had not adequately planned,
or sent enough troops, for postconflict operations in Iraq.
ABC News reports that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
fired back at both documents yesterday, saying the US military is not broken.
"I just can't imagine ... someone looking at the US armed forces today and suggesting they're close to breaking. That's just not the case." Although he said he hadn't read either report, Rumsfeld called them at various turns "out-of-date or misdirected," "a misunderstanding of the situation" and "not consistent with the facts."
Noting the current force is "battle hardened," Rumsfeld derided comparisons with a peacetime force or the implication that the current force had been weakened as a result of its combat experience. "The implication is almost backward in a sense, for the world saw the US go halfway around the world ... they saw what the US military did in Iraq and the message from that is not that this armed force is broken but that this armed force is enormously capable," he said. Meanwhile, the
BBC reported Tuesday that a US soldier convicted last week of negligent homicide in the death of Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush in 2003 was given
a reprimand and docked $6,000 of his pay. He could have faced up to three years in jail.
After the sentencing, Welshofer's lawyer, Frank Spinner, was quoted by the Associated Press news agency as saying: "When you send our men and women over there to fight... you've got to give them enough room to make mistakes without treating them like criminals." US military prosecutors said General Mowhoush was bound and placed headfirst in a sleeping bag. He died with an officer sitting on him.
Also...
•
Audit describes misuse of funds in Iraq projects (New York Times)
•
Experts doubt expediency of attacking Iran (San Francisco Chronicle)
•
Prince Harry could be sent to Iraq (Agence France-Presse)
•
AG's memo raises questions on Patriot Act (Boston Globe)
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Tom Regan
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