Analysis: Iraq report casts military as war-weary

The Iraq Study Group

WASHINGTON — Beyond its prescriptions for fixing Iraq, the special commission that studied a new approach to the war also spotlighted less obvious military ills that have deepened as fighting has dragging on.

The military is war-weary, the defense budget is in danger of disarray, and relations between the military brass and their civilian overseers are frayed, the Iraq Study Group said. The bipartisan panel's report poses tough challenges for Robert Gates, who has no previous Pentagon management experience but will become defense secretary on Dec. 18.

According to the commission's assessment:

-- The Bush administration's focus on Iraq has limited the military's effectiveness in Afghanistan.

-- The Iraq war, playing out simultaneously with the fight in Afghanistan, has so strained the Army and Marine Corps that new attention - and billions of dollars - must be devoted to restoring the capabilities of the military so it is ready for conflicts of the future.

"U.S. military forces, especially our ground forces, have been stretched nearly to the breaking point," the report said. This has made recruiting more difficult and accelerated wear on equipment, it said.

"Many units do not have fully functioning equipment for training when they redeploy to the United States," the study group said. "The American military has little reserve force to call on if it needs ground forces to respond to other crises around the world."

Read the rest at the Houston Chronicle