USA Today reports that two brigades, headed to Baghdad as part of Bush’s escalation to reinforce the security of the city, will forgo essential desert training in California. Instead the troops will finish their readiness training at their home bases. This should come as no surprise to anyone who has been watching the administration cut corners militarily for the past four years. But somehow the consistency of this trend makes it no less appalling. As Think Progress points out, Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is screaming about this over at her blog, The Gavel:
“This unacceptable state of readiness affected our military long before President Bush ordered an escalation of the Iraq war in January, but the escalation is making it worse.”
For more on how the Iraq war is “Breaking the Army” and how our troops are paying dearly for it, see Mother Jones‘ new report on Iraq.
