Reports are that The Army and Marines want more troops, except that they really don’t. The services are actually requesting permanent increases in their size to basically match their current sizes, which are being boosted by special wartime bills.
I’m heartened by this. We’ve been told for years that the military leaders didn’t want more troops. However now, the Army and Marines are superficially making it sound like they do. Only, by requesting an increase in their numbers that slightly more than matches the current amount provided by the supplementals, this gives the Democrats a way to attack Bush while in fact staying the course.
There are some smart cookies behind this announcement.