http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/29/opinion/29MON1.htmlOver a third of the Army's active-duty combat troops are now in Iraq, and by spring the Pentagon plans to let most of them come home for urgently needed rest. Many will have served longer than a normal overseas tour and under extremely harsh conditions. When the 130,000 Americans rotate out for home leave, nearly the same number will rotate in. At that point, should the country need to send additional fighters anywhere else in the world, it will have dangerously few of them to spare.
This is the clearest warning yet that the Bush administration is pushing America's peacetime armed forces toward their limits. Washington will not be able to sustain the mismatch between unrealistic White House ambitions and finite Pentagon means much longer without long-term damage to our military strength. The only solution is for the Bush administration to return to foreign policy sanity, starting with a more cooperative, less vindictive approach to European allies who could help share America's military burdens.
Long months under constant threat of rocket attacks, roadside ambushes and deadly confrontations with civilians in Iraq have left tens of thousands of American soldiers tired, jumpy and badly in need of a break, one that should last at least several months. Most American strategists fear at least a temporary upsurge in attacks as the troop rotations get under way and maneuvering to produce an interim Iraqi government intensifies.
Well over 100,000 American troops will be needed for many more months, unless the Bush administration starts wooing NATO allies instead of snubbing them. Eventually, the Iraqi recruits now being hurriedly trained may provide some relief. Yet there are doubts about their military competence and political reliability, and fears that if Washington is in too much of a hurry, it will succeed only in recreating Saddam Hussein's old security forces in new American-issued uniforms.