A good article on the jam the Army is in. It's not good.

Army troops, budget stretched to the limit

The U.S. Army division that perhaps worries Pentagon force planners the most is the 101st Airborne, and this worry goes a long way toward explaining why senior uniformed Army leaders have begun talking publicly about the need to increase total Army troop strength for the first time in decades. By the time of its scheduled relief in February-March 2004, the 101st will be one of the first divisions to have experienced the Army's new one-year deployment cycle, twice as long as the six-month deployments that are the norm for Navy, Marine, and Air Force units. What really concerns Army force planners, however, is that the division scheduled to relieve the 101st—an international division that is supposed to be made up of foreign troops in America's Iraq coalition—is nowhere to be found.

In fact, despite months of arm-twisting, no countries have yet stepped forward to lead or to fill out the 15,000-or-so troop slots of the new multinational division, which remains largely a force on paper. Given devastating car and truck bombings in Baghdad targeting the Jordanian Embassy and the U.N. headquarters, and the mosque bombing in Najaf—as well as intensifying guerrilla warfare and rising U.S. casualties—Army planners are increasingly worried that international will to send forces to Iraq is waning. Recently, for instance, Japan and Thailand have reportedly delayed the planned dispatch of several thousand peacekeepers until next year at least, and other nations are also balking.

"If the security situation in Iraq doesn't improve, and the coalition division fails to materialize in the next few months, we will not be able to continue this level of effort without introducing very serious new strains on the Army," said a knowledgeable Army force planner, who noted that influential lawmakers such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., are already calling for an increase in U.S. troop levels in Iraq. "If the multinational division doesn't materialize, we're already probably going to have to call up many more reserve units in the next month or so in order to provide them the necessary predeployment training, or send soldiers and units back to tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq sooner than anticipated. In that scenario, you're talking about having to send the 3rd Infantry Division back to Baghdad in 15 months' time," he said. "No one wants to do that."
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  thanks to Badattitudes Journal

Jerome Doolitle, at Badattitudes Journal posted this article with the following empathetic comment...

As a former private first class who was once investigated by the Army Counterintelligence Corps for the military crime of disaffection, the whining of generals leaves me oddly unmoved.

You’re the guys who spent four years sabotaging Carter and eight years undermining Clinton and most of you voted for Bush with whimpering anticipation. So now you can eat your own droppings.

It just goes to show — be careful what you ask for.