Mother Jones
by Lawrence J. Korb

08/17/05

In March 2003, when the Army chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, argued that the Bush administration's position on the number of ground troops necessary to occupy Iraq was grossly inadequate, he was publicly disparaged by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who mistakenly believed we would be greeted as liberators. But last month, when Army Gens. John Abizaid and George Casey, the top commanders in Iraq, argued that a substantial number of troops could be withdrawn next spring or summer, Rumsfeld was silent. Why? ... The primary reason for the statements and Rumsfeld's silence is that even if we wanted to keep about 140,000 ground troops in Iraq through 2006, we cannot do so without breaking the all-volunteer Army...

http://tinyurl.com/73odr


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp