In today’s Washington Post, twelve former Army Captains write that the U.S. military is overstretched and loosing ground to insurgents in Iraq.

Five years on, the Iraq war is as undermanned and under-resourced as it was from the start. And, five years on, Iraq is in shambles… There is one way we might be able to succeed in Iraq. To continue an operation of this intensity and duration, we would have to abandon our volunteer military for compulsory service. Short of that, our best option is to leave Iraq immediately. A scaled withdrawal will not prevent a civil war, and it will spend more blood and treasure on a losing proposition. America, it has been five years. It’s time to make a choice.

The captains’ argument has been echoed by retired and active duty military officials. Just days ago, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the former top commander in Iraq, called the war “a nightmare with no end in sight.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Army Chief of Staff General George Casey, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Michael Mullen, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Undersecretary for Intelligence Gen. James Clapper and other top officials have also argued that the war may be crippling the military’s ability to respond to other crises. ThinkProgress has the full run down here.

The Bush administration has consistently claimed that the decision to draw down troops from Iraq “will be made on a calm assessment by our military commanders based on the conditions on the ground, not a nervous reaction by Washington politicians or poll results in the media.” In reality, the President only listens to those who wear his brand of rose-colored glasses.

For instance, during today’s White House press conference, Press Secretary Dana Perino dismissed Sanchez’s criticism and responded like a “nervous…Washington politician.”

General Sanchez had a good career with the military and the President appreciates his service. I think that, by any measure, if you look at Iraq today, where we’ve been because of the surge — where we’ve come because of the surge, we’re in a much better place today because of what General Petraeus has been able to do in providing the additional troops and getting the Anbar — Anbari sheikhs to turn against al Qaeda, reducing civilian death, electricity is up around the country.

Similarly, fearing that a military drafty would rally the American people against the Iraq war, President Bush rejects the idea and its proponents. Rather than end the Iraq war and preserve the American military, Bush choses to fight the war on the cheap. Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, put it best:

I say to those people who want to keep up this surge indefinitely, if you have the courage of your convictions, then call for reinstatement of the draft. Because our volunteer Army was not designed, as Gen. Abizaid said, for the long war.

But Bush ignores all this. Rather than strategically deploying the American military to defend the homeland, Bush has hijacked America’s volunteer forces to propel a failed ideological agenda. Fortunately, members of the military are increasingly calling Bush on his bluff. For the second time in three months, American foot soldiers have provided the President and the American people with “calm assessments … based on the conditions on the ground in Iraq.” Today’s pleas, like those that came before, have fallen on deaf ears.

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