Much Bigger Military is Called For

The Bush administration is facing new calls from Democrats and Republicans, including some of its staunchest allies, to expand the size of the Army andMarines by tens of thousands of active-duty troops over the next several years. The bipartisan calls reflect burgeoning concerns that the Iraq conflict has so strained U.S. ground forces that the United States could find itself short of forces in the event of an unexpected crisis in the near future. Some Democrats and Republicans are also worried that the unprecedented mobilization rates for the Army Reserve and National Guard, who constitute more than 40 percent of the 150,000-member U.S. force in Iraq, are starting to severely hurt recruiting. What's more, the best trained Reserve and Guard combat troops already have been sent into war. "In the post-9-11 world, we need a bigger military," said William Kristol, the editor of the conservative Weekly Standard magazine who's close to the White House and was a strong supporter of the March 2003 invasion. Late this week, Kristol plans to send a letter to congressional leaders signed by about 30 leading nongovernment national security experts from both parties calling for the addition of 25,000 ground troops a year for the next several years beginning in 2006. The letter would come two weeks after 21 Democratic senators wrote to President Bush, urging that he set aside resources to expand U.S. forces by an unspecified level beyond the 20,000 new Army troops and 3,000 Marines authorized by Congress last year over the objections of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. [more]