An Army of None

It isn't just the retired generals, who spoke yesterday before a special hearing that required the Democrats to call it, but inside as well.

Fred Kaplan reports it is Army Chief of Staff Peter Shoomaker:

The trumpet sounded last month, when Schoomaker refused to give Rumsfeld a detailed Army budget proposal for fiscal year 2008. The Air Force and Navy met the Aug. 15 deadline for submitting their program requests. But Schoomaker—in an unprecedented move—said he preferred not to...

...It's not just the repair depots that are overworked. Friday's New York Times reported that the Army is so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan that just two or three active-duty combat brigades—7,000 to 10,000 soldiers—are fully ready to deal with a crisis that might erupt elsewhere in the world.

And among the units cycling in and out of Iraq, troubles are brewing. The 3rd Infantry Division, which so quickly roared up the desert to Baghdad at the outset of this war, is scheduled to head back to Iraq soon for its third tour of duty. Yet, according to a story in today's New York Times, two of the division's four brigades aren't ready to go. They have none of their armored vehicles and only half of their troops.

Units throughout the Army are so strained, generals say, that they're going to have to rely even more on the National Guard and Reserves, which are wildly overwhelmed themselves.

Meanwhile, to meet enlistment targets, the Army has raised the maximum age of recruits to 41, lowered their required aptitude scores, and—in another recent gulp—relaxed moral and disciplinary standards.

Why it's almost as if they are begging Jonah Goldberg to enlist!

We...are...not...safer.

We are, however, quite fucked.