Bush: "War Preznit"

Bush is destroying the military.

From The Washington Post via MSNBC:

The U.S. military has spent most of the $65 billion that Congress approved for fighting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and is scrambling to find $12.3 billion more from within the Defense Department to finance the wars through the end of the fiscal year, federal investigators said yesterday.

[snip]

The strain is beginning to add up, the GAO said. The hard-hit Army faces a $5.3 billion shortfall in funds supporting deployed forces, a $2 billion budget deficit for the refurbishing of equipment used in Iraq and a $753 million deficit in its logistics contract. The Army also needs $800 million more to cover equipment maintenance costs and $650 million to pay contractors guarding garrisons.

The Air Force has decreased flying hours for pilots, eliminated some training, slowed civilian hiring and curtailed "lower priority requirements such as travel, supplies and equipment," the report said.

From this morning's Wall Street Journal (subscription):

Despite public claims that recruiting is on track, senior military officials involved in U.S. Army recruiting say that the service is cutting deeply into its delayed-entry pool of recruits, which likely will create a shortfall later this year.

[snip]

Already, the strains of those deployments are showing. Last month, Army officials announced that thousands of active-duty soldiers who are nearing the end of their volunteer service could be forced to serve an entire 12-month tour overseas if their units are tapped for duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

"We are facing a serious manpower crunch," said a senior defense official.

War President my ass.