The concentration of American troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan limits the Pentagon’s ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts, the military’s highest ranking officer reported to Congress on Monday.
The officer, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed Congress in a classified report that major combat operations elsewhere in the world, should they be necessary, would probably be more protracted and produce higher American and foreign civilian casualties because of the commitment of Pentagon resources in Iraq and Afghanistan.
NYT: Free Reg
No fucking duh.
“And the answer is no, he didn’t feel a bit limited,” Mr. Bush said. “It feels like we got plenty of capacity.” [FEELS?!?!?!?]
Late Monday, a Pentagon official dismissed any serious contradiction between the president and the general. “The two comments are consistent in that no one in the military feels at all limited in the ability to respond to any contingency,” the official said. “What the risk assessment discusses is the nature of the response.”
Translation: Dear George, you’ve put us in a box with your insane pursuit of Hussein’s oil; spread our limited combat forces to the breaking point in Afghanistan & Iraq; robbed the country of it’s domestic defensive forces (Guard); maintained installations for the defense of [insert country here]; and you and the rest of the f*cking chickenhawks want us to “go with the Army we have”. No problem. We’ll just shift to pre-authorized launch of tactical nuclear weapons.
Westmoreland used the same bullshit rhetoric in Vietnam. He got fired. Among other notables, Shinseki told them exactly what we needed to wage peace following the blitzkrieg in Iraq. And lest we forget, Tommy Franks wanted to pursue the real objective: terrorism. Overruled.
If the democratic leadership was smart – nobody can make that argument – they’d realize this is an opportunity to present their alternative: the Kerry Solution. Increase force levels for special ops & civil affairs; rotate the Guard back home; ask for help with Iraq from the UN+NATO; close bases in Europe; and reinstitute the draft. Or, as usual, watch the opportunity fly off into the sunset.
The Pentagon & the upper reaches of the US military has the courage to send ill-trained, ill-equiped soldiers out on Iraqi streets to get their arms and legs blown off but doesn’t have the courage to give a realistic assessment to Congress. The former only kills or maims soldiers but the latter is a direct threat to their careers!
What’s his salary?
They coulda had us, Boo, for half the price, and we would have told them the same ting. YEARS AGO!
Didn’t he say it wasn’t a problem at all a few days ago, during a press conference with Rummy?
That’s a sad world where you can’t even trust generals. Uh, wait…
He just held a news conference … everything’s cool, people! We can handle anything!
Okay? Chill!
The man is as dumb as a sack of nails.
any risk of reduction in revenue to key Us business interests as a result of crusade expansion.
” There is no doubt what the outcome would be…but it may not be as pretty.” WTF is he talking about? Iraq? This is pretty?
But I really mean…I support the CIC…I didn’t mean to infer…
spin, spin, spin…
Anybody feel a draft?