The Army We Could Have Had

There has been a lot of brouhaha over the years bout Rumsfeld's statement that "you go to war with the Army you have."

Both conservative Lawrence Auster and liberal Matthew Yglesias have pointed out that going to war in Iraq with large army was impossible, because we didn't have the army that would be required (although Yglesias believes that to be one reason why we shouldn't have gone and Auster thinks that we had to go, because he still believes the old line that everyone thought Iraq had WMDs). Lots of conservatives have blamed Clinton for gutting the U.S. military.

But few have pointed out the fact that Bush has had five years since 9/11, and we have seen no major push to increase the size of the army. So while we can blame others for the fact that our army was too small for Iraq, the fact that it is still too small to hold onto Iraq must be at least partially blamed on Bush.

Granted, we are not getting enough volunteers to double the size of the army currently, but that just means that the government isn't offering enough incentives, such as higher pay or better benefits. Bush tried this war on the cheap, and we are paying the price.

That is all.