President Bush To Enlarge The Military

President Bush tells the Washington Post that he plans to expand the size of the U.S. military to better meet the challenges of a long-term global war against Islamic extremists.

I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops, the army, the Marines. And I talked about this to [Defense] Secretary [Robert M.] Gates and he is going to spend some time talking to the folks in the building, come back with a recommendation to me about how to proceed forward on this idea.

This is great news, but I cannot resist the temptation to say it's about [expletives deleted] time. Secretary Rumsfeld should have recommended this years ago.

The Army has already been temporarily increased by 30,000 over the 482,000 active-duty soldiers in 2001. The Army wants to make the increase permanent and continue to grow by an additional 7,000 soldiers per year. It is estimated that every 10,000 additional soldiers costs about $1.2 billion a year.

A transcript excerpt from the Post's interview with President Bush is available here.

Comments

[California Yankee]

Jay, As you know, I remain an unrepentant supporter of the war. Your view that Iraq is not part of the Global War Against Terror is belied by the fact that our enemies consider Iraq the central front in the war. I will continue to support President Bush in the struggle against the Islamofacists as long as he continues to take the fight to the evil doers. As for the possible surge of U.S. forces lets wait and see what the President comes up with after he considers the views of the appropriate advisers.

[jay hariton]

with all due respect. I don't understand how you still have confidence in an administration who has constantly made WRONG decisions manageing the war in Iraq (which has nothing to do with the war on terror). Even if you still support the cause, how can you support the individuals in charge. In my opinion if Bush commits an additional 30,000 troops to Iraq ,it will almost guarantee a Democrat president in 2008. There's an old saying " If you want to get out of a stop digging" He just keeps digging.
That's my story and i,m sticking to it.