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August 29, 2006
Rumsfeld: U.S. able to take new fight despite Iraq
Topics: War on TerrorU.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld warned potential adversaries yesterday that the United States remained capable of responding to military threats at home and abroad, despite its troop commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan:
"It would be unfortunate if other countries thought that because we have 136,000 troops in Iraq today, that we're not capable of defending our country or doing anything that we might need to do," he said in response to a question about military options for dealing with Iran.Continue reading, "... U.S. able to take new fight despite Iraq".
So, let's take a look at Rumsfeld's math. There's 136,000 troops in Iraq today, and looking at the May 11, 2006 Legislative Bulletin for number of authorized troops through 2007 (listed below in extended post), and assuming we're at or near our authorized number of troops (just an assumption here, likely close), it does indeed look like Ahmadinejad needs to cool off, take a few deep breaths, try to engage his brain for once, and put aside the dreams of fulfilling whatever the guy in the well keeps telling him.
And by the way, the troop numbers below don't take into account America's overwhelming air superiority, wealth of weapons, and tendency to go through Arab armies like crap through a goose (Our generals eat wheaties).
Then there's the Israelis (in a major conflict involving its survival - not to be held back by international opinion), the Brits, and possibly the Germans - in a pinch. Forget the French, they don't count anyway.
And of course there's all those tactical nukes, also for the pinch, should it come.
# Army. 512,400
# Navy. 340,700
# Marine Corps. 180,000
# Air Force. 334,200
# Army National Guard, Selected Reserve. 350,000
# Army Reserve, Selected Reserve. 200,000
# Naval Reserve, Selected Reserve. 71,300
# Marine Corps Reserve, Selected Reserve. 39,600
# Air National Guard, Selected Reserve. 107,000
# Air Force Reserve, Selected Reserve. 74,900
# Coast Guard Reserve, Selected Reserve. 10,000
# Army National Guard, Full-Time Duty. 28,165
# Army Reserve, Full-Time Duty. 15,416
# Naval Reserve, Full-Time Duty. 12,564
# Marine Corps Reserve, Full-Time Duty. 2,261
Looks like Rumsfeld's right, but of course we all knew he was. But I doubt Mahmoud will be deterred - he's counting a little too much on the mahdi in the well.
Posted by Richard at August 29, 2006 10:36 AM
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