The following editorial appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Tuesday, Jan. 31:

   When it comes to assessing the state of America's largest fighting force, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is an Army of one.

   "The force is not broken," Rumsfeld insisted last week. "It's battle-hardened. It's not a peacetime force that has been in barracks or garrisons."

   "It's not broken, it's battle-hardened" puts us in mind of the Monty Python skit about the man who brings a dead parrot back to the pet shop. "No, no, he's not dead, he's ... he's restin'!" the shop owner says. "Remarkable bird, the Norwegian Blue."

   Contrary to Rumsfeld's sanguine remarks, two studies released in January said that three years of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, coupled with related recruiting and retention problems, have severely strained the Army. A study done for the Pentagon by military analyst Andrew Krepinevich says the Army has been reduced to a "thin green line." Another study, done for congressional Democrats, cited a risk of "breaking the force."

   While those two studies were getting all the publicity, a copy of the Pentagon's latest "Quadrennial Defense Review" was being leaked to InsideDefense.com, a Web site for military insiders. In opaque bureaucratic language, the QDR comes to largely the same conclusions as the other two studies: "For the foreseeable future, steady state operations, including operations as part of a long war against terrorist networks, and the associated rotation base and sustainment requirements, will be the main determinant for sizing U.S. forces."

   In other words, as long as the Army is going to rotate units in and out of Iraq, it may not be broken, but it's not going to be able to do much of anything else. Long term, the QDR says, the Pentagon better start planning for how it would deal with a "near peer" competitor, i.e., China, with a downsized U.S. force.

   So that's three reports -- one done by an independent analyst, one done for his political opponents and one done inside the Pentagon itself -- that seem to dispute Rumsfeld's "don't worry, be happy" views.

   Rep. Ike Skelton of Missouri, the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, released a letter he wrote Jan. 26 to Rumsfeld. Skelton said the Army's worn-out equipment has placed the force "at strategic risk," and estimated the cost of replacing or repairing it at $35 billion. The figure continues to grow, he said, and doesn't include the cost of modernizing the Army, which he said could exceed $80 billion.

   Finally, there is this assessment from Gen. George Casey, the Army's top commander in Iraq: "The forces are stretched ... and I don't think there's any question about that."

   Today's Army is a lethal fighting force. But how long it can stay that way, given Rumsfeld's lousy pre-war planning and non-existent post-war planning, is an open question. So is this: How does this man keep his job? Remarkable bird, this Don Rumsfeld.

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