I've been quiet for a while, but this headline today in the New York Times was too much for me to handle. Remember during the debate about going to war with Iraq that some Democrats (me being one) raised the concern that devoting so many troops to an armed conflict with Iraq would weaken our ability to go after terrorism and Al Qaeda? Remember how Rumsfield et al said, don't be silly, we can't fight two wars at once -- hell, we could even do three or four (North Korea was in the news at the time as well -- glad that threat had gone away)?

Well, again, as with almost everything this Administration says, (see Deficit, $300 billion vs. $455+ billion)whoops, they were wrong:

The strains on American ground forces as the Bush administration extends their global missions are prompting new debates on Capitol Hill and within the Pentagon over the question of whether the military needs more troops worldwide.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and senior military officers spent time over the weekend considering how to assign enough soldiers to fill the long-term mission of stabilizing Iraq while simultaneously fulfilling other overseas commitments and providing security against terrorism at home and abroad.

Mr. Rumsfeld has been telling Congress in recent days that before the Pentagon takes the major step of asking for money to enlarge the military, he hopes to cut back on less urgent foreign assignments, to move people in uniform out of administrative tasks and back into combat units and to change the balance of assignments between active-duty forces and those in the National Guard and Reserves.

Apparently, they would say anything to get their freak on in Iraq . . .

- posted by Joshua @ 2:50 PM