The Honorable Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi requested the
National Security Advisory Group to report on the readiness of the our Army. The NSAG includes such luminaries as William Perry, Wes Clarke, John Shalikashvili among others. Their letter was published today in this
press release. The two main points are
We have recently learned that:
-- Two thirds of the Army's operating force, active and reserve, is now reporting in as unready.
-- There is not a single non-deployed Army Brigade Combat Team in the United States that is ready to deploy.
The bottom line is that our Army currently has no ready, strategic reserve. Not since the Vietnam era and its aftermath has the Army's readiness been so degraded.
I like that succinctness of point. You can forget your war with Iran or Syria; there just aren't any troops left with which to fight. And let's hope someone along the line figures out what the word
diplomacy means, for that is looking like our only option with respect to Israel and Lebanon. Of course, should North Korea need attention, we might just have problems.
Ok, maybe I am getting ahead of myself here. It sounds like I am like so many here blaming BushCo for everything. What are the authors saying as to the cause of this lack of readiness?
This degraded readiness condition stems from the heavy deployment of combat forces the Army has sustained these past four years. Predictably, this has resulted in accelerated wearout of large quantities of Army equipment, disruptions in training schedules, and strains on meeting recruitment and reenlistment goals.[...].Restoring the Army's readiness requires additional funding, but, inexplicably, the administration is underfunding the Army. It has not requested funding adequate to support the roles and missions envisioned for the Army by the 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review, nor has it provided adequate funding to support the operational demands being placed on the Army today.
Turns out my thought to blame this failure to take care of our military on BushCo is correct.
I am shocked, I tell you. Shocked. They make so much noise about how the GOP are the ones that support the troops. But just again (and again and again), we learn they only know how to use. For a band with so much military ambition, you think they might once and awhile actually tend to the Army.
Oh, and remember reading about how the Pentagon approved $11B over 3 years for the F-22? Compare that with
the Office of Management and Budget recently cut the Army's request for FY06 supplemental appropriations by $4.9 Billion, undermining the Army's efforts to "get well" after substantial equipment degradation and losses in Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. We believe this constitutes a serious failure of civilian stewardship of the military.
I'll give you the letter might be taken as somewhat partisan (no problem for me). With that in mind, I like this part:
The administration's willingness to put our nation at such strategic risk is deeply disturbing. And its failure to adequately support the soldiers who are risking their lives for this nation is unacceptable.
There is a wonderful line for the stub.
I'll close this diary/rank with the complete list of signatories:
William J. Perry, Chair (former Secretary of Defense)
Madeleine K. Albright (former Secretary of State)
Graham T. Allison (former Assistant Secretary of Defense)
Samuel R. Berger (former National Security Advisor)
Ashton B. Carter (former Assistant Secretary of Defense)
Wesley K. Clark (former Supreme Allied Commander Europe)
Thomas E. Donilon (former Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State)
Michele A. Flournoy (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense)
John D. Podesta (former White House Chief of Staff)
Susan E. Rice (former Assistant Secretary of State)
John M. Shalikashvili (former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff)
Wendy R. Sherman (former State Department Counselor)
Elizabeth D. Sherwood-Randall (former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense)
James B. Steinberg (former Deputy National Security Advisor)