U.S. out of fresh troops for Iraq

Source: Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Sapped by nearly six years of war, the Army has nearly exhausted its fighting force and its options if the Bush administration decides to extend the Iraq buildup beyond next spring.

The Army's 38 available combat units are deployed, just returning home or already tapped to go to Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere, leaving no fresh troops to replace five extra brigades that President Bush sent to Baghdad this year, according to interviews and military documents reviewed by The Associated Press.

That presents the Pentagon with several painful choices if the U.S. wants to maintain higher troop levels beyond the spring of 2008:

USING NATIONAL GUARD UNITS on an accelerated schedule.

BREAKING THE MILITARY'S PLEDGE to keep soldiers in Iraq for no longer than 15 months.

BREACHING A COMMITMENT to give soldiers a full year at home before sending them back to war.

For a war-fatigued nation and a Congress bent on bringing troops home, none of those is desirable.
Eighteen Army brigades are in Iraq, each with about 3,500 soldiers. At least 13 more brigades are scheduled to rotate in. Two others are in Afghanistan, and two more are set to rotate in there. Also, several other brigades either are set for a future deployment or are scattered around the globe.


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I'm very uncomfortable with this kind of talk. Bush has made a mess of things, but why should children of his followers be punished? In my opinion, nobody's children should be sent off to fight an illegal war. Instead, bring the troops home.

If his followers are true believers in what he's doing they should be more then willing to offer their own children as a sacrifice for the man that they insist is following "God's" commands, that's
why!

Besides, it can't be regarded as a punishment if it's something that they support, I'm almost sure that most would consider it a badge of honor if their child were to be killed fighting for their leader.

Personally I think that the troops should be brought home and that Congress needs to repeal the War Powers Act and take back what has been their resposibilty, the authority to declare war.

sk07, again how many more must die for lies, and the count keeps on mounting. Send repigs kids to fight for *'s crusade.

time to tell them to put their enlistment where their rhetoric is

was sect. of def. I think he cut the army by 25 percent in those years. Good that he did build the two or three bombers he got into the budget those years. They should come into some use now, like blowing up a few houses. So much for insight on what will happen in the world by all those brains in DC under the first Bush. Would have thought that some one around would have seen that the whole world could see they could not win a war in the old way and would figure out a newer way to do it but I guess if your into corp. profits you would not see this. Even so many countries winning their freedom with guerrilla wars did not ring a bell with us. That does seem to be a history of us all over and over. We never plan on new ways turning up. Time to get some new thinkers into the DOD for sure. It is not 1940's any more.

military, but Bush did.