ANOTHER GENERAL SPEAKS OUT

Iraq war prospects are bleak: ex-officer
COX NEWS SERVICE
7/19/05
http://www.dailystar.com/dailystar/news/84703.php


WASHINGTON - The war in Iraq is stretching U.S. military forces and equipment toward a "meltdown" that could require force reductions in Iraq by next summer, retired Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday.

"The United States Army and Marine Corps are incapable of sustaining this campaign," McCaffrey said, adding that similar stresses are being imposed upon equipment. "We are running our capital fleet into the ground."

McCaffrey, a retired four-star general who commanded a massive tank unit in the 1991 Gulf War, visited Iraq in June to assess the U.S. mission there.

McCaffrey said Rumsfeld is not facing facts concerning the physical limits of the U.S. deployment and its impact on the military. "Secretary Rumsfeld is in denial of the evidence in front of his eyes," said McCaffrey, currently an adjunct professor of international relations at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.