Yankee army, enervated, all petered out and in crisis in Iraq ?

roscommon | anti-war / imperialism | other press Sunday August 12, 2007 13:13 by Padraig Murphy - Cosantoiri Siochana

Officers educated at the elite West Point academy are leaving at a rate not seen in 30 years, with the consequence that the US army has a shortfall of 3,000 commissioned officers

In today's issue of the Observer, Peter Beaumont in Baghdad reports that the US occupation army is enervated, all petered and in crisis: "Exhaustion and combat stress are besieging US troops in Iraq as they battle with a new type of warfare. Some even rely on Red Bull to get through the day. As desertions and absences increase, the military is struggling to cope with the crisis".

US marines asleep at their base in Falluja, Iraq. Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty images

Excerpts : "The anecdotal evidence on the ground confirms what others -prominent among them General Colin Powell, the former US Secretary of State - have been insisting for months now: that the US army is 'about broken'. Only a third of the regular army's brigades now qualify as combat-ready. Officers educated at the elite West Point academy are leaving at a rate not seen in 30 years, with the consequence that the US army has a shortfall of 3,000 commissioned officers - and the problem is expected to worsen".

"The army's exhaustion is reflected in problems such as the rate of desertion and unauthorised absences - a problem, it was revealed earlier this year, that had increased threefold on the period before the war in Afghanistan and had resulted in thousands of negative discharges"

"In a radio interview, America's 'war tsar' Lieutenant General Douglas Lute has called for the nation's political leaders to consider bringing back the draft to help a military exhausted by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan".