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"American military commanders and Pentagon officials now concede that they consistently misjudged the strength and ingenuity of the insurgency in Iraq, which has grown more sophisticated in its tactics. Because commanders failed to take that force into account, the Army's procurement machine could never catch up, no matter how hard it tried...
Others say that the Pentagon's longstanding preference for billion-dollar weaponry has made it less prepared to deliver the basic tools needed by soldiers on the ground.
"We've never been very good at equipping people in a simple, straightforward fashion," said Thomas E. White, who resigned as secretary of the Army in April 2003 after a falling out with Mr. Rumsfeld."

"The Army in February, for the first time in nearly five years, failed to achieve its monthly recruiting goal. It is in danger of missing its annual recruiting target for the first time since 1999.
Recruiting for the Army's reserve component -- the National Guard and Army Reserve -- is suffering even more as the Pentagon relies heavily on these part-time soldiers to maintain troop levels in Iraq. The regular Army is 6 percent behind its year-to-date recruiting target, the Reserve is 10 percent behind, and the Guard is 26 percent short...
In January and February, the Marines missed their goal for signing up new recruits -- the first such shortfall in nearly a decade..."

"Those Republican majorities voted last week to "impose an enrollment fee of at least $230 a year on 2.4 million veterans - one of every three now eligible for Veterans Affairs Administration health care," according to Military.com. Apparently half of those 2.4 million veterans used the VA health system last year."