Top Marine Says Corps Stretched Too Thin

WASHINGTON, Nov. 22, 2006 — -- The new commandant of the Marine Corps has sounded an alarm about Marine readiness. Gen. James Conway said that the demands of Iraq have put strains on the Corps that threaten its worldwide mission.

Either the Marine Corps must be made bigger, Conway said, or the demand for Marines in Iraq reduced. "There is stress on the individual Marine, and there is stress on the institution," he said. Conway met with a small group of reporters in Washington this morning.

Marine deployments in Iraq typically last seven months. The normal schedule calls for 14 months between deployments, allowing for both family time and training, but Iraq's demands have cut the turnaround time to less than a year in some cases. This has a major impact on what Conway called the "bread-and-butter training" for Marines.

"Artillery men are not training artillery," he said, noting that the Marine Corps has essentially stopped full-scale, fire-and-maneuver exercises. Almost all the training now focuses on counterinsurgency, preparing Marines for Iraq. Jungle and mountain training has also suffered, Conway said, making the Marines less prepared to fight the next war.

If there were another emergency in the world, Conway said, "We are not as capable today as we were in 2001.

"The deployment would not be as fast, the fight would take longer. You could see more casualties as the result of that," Conway said, concluding that U.S. forces would succeed but "not with the overwhelming combat power that we would ordinarily be able to provide to that fight."

"The Marine Corps' forte is combined-arms maneuver warfare," said Conway. "It used to be we had 10 battalions a year that would maneuver their forces under live fire. That's tremendous training. We're not doing that. We're not operating together on that scale to provide the nation the capability to deploy and win quickly, thereby reducing the impact on casualties like we previously have been capable of doing."

Currently, there are about 180,000 Marines on active duty. The Corps' size could be increased, Conway said, but it would take time. Recruiters could be expected to add only about 1,000 to 2,000 additional Marines a year.