One of Ours

...It's too late to back out of Iraq. The real issue today is how to beat the insurgency without eviscerating the American military to do it. If winning the war will take more troops, then we must send them. Reconciling the need to win in Iraq with the need to sustain military readiness will be hard. It probably means we need to increase the size of the active military and adjust the mixture of active and reserve forces to put more "nation-building" troops like military police and civil affairs personnel on active duty. The Pentagon also needs to adjust its 2005 budget, shifting money from futuristic procurement programs to current operations such as reconstituting the pre-po fleets. And America needs to invest more in its reserves so they're ready to back up the active force when the military is stretched like it is today. Ultimately, we must win in Iraq. But we cannot afford to focus so single-mindedly on that mission that we neglect our ability to meet other military threats in the post-Sept. 11 world.