Military readiness: candid assessments long overdue.

• Author: Erwin, Sandra I.
• Position: DEFENSE WATCH

ALARM BELLS HAVE GOTTEN progressively louder and more jarring in recent weeks on the issue of military readiness. The warnings voiced by military officials, lawmakers and a chorus of beltway pundits are hardly surprising: The nation's army is so overcommitted in Iraq that it could not respond to another major unforeseen contingency.

Four years of rotational deployments to Iraq have been debilitating. And while there is no shortage of evidence to prove that point, it is notable that these cautionary outcries only came to light after the departure of former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

On several occasions since December 2006, both Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker and the Commandant of the Marine Corps, Gen. James T. Conway, have repeatedly said they worry that the Iraq rotations are relentlessly stressing the force. They warned that while units are being trained and equipped to fight in Iraq, the troops back home remain unprepared to engage in another conflict, if one erupted unexpectedly. There simply isn't enough personnel and equipment to fight the war and simultaneously keep up the training for skills other than counterinsurgency.

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace echoed the unease in a February report to Congress. But fearing that these revelations would embolden would-be enemies, Pace also tried to soften the blow by assuring potential foes that the United States would be "able to respond elsewhere in the world to another threat ... We would freeze the units that are in Iraq and Afghanistan in place, and mobilize our Reserve."

The chairman obviously wants to play down the challenges we face because he's worried about adversaries exploiting the situation, said Michele Flournoy, a former Pentagon official and military expert at the Center for a New American Security.

If other conflicts required heavy use of air and naval forces, there would be no problem. But another major ground war would be a tall order, unless the president risked his popularity dipping even lower by mobilizing the entire National Guard and Reserves, Flournoy said. "If you are looking for a full ground force, short of mobilizing the entire National Guard and Reserves, it would be hard to respond to a sizeable conflict." Under the current partial mobilization, the president "almost has exhausted what he can do."

Four years of Iraq deployments have created in the Army a readiness caste system of "haves" and "have-nots." Those units...