Another take by e-mail:

Rich,
The defense official you quoted in your blog entry may be completely correct regarding GEN Abizaid and GEN Casey’s views on the matter. The flip side, however, is that there aren’t any additional troops to send, even if they wanted them. There is no point in going to the SECDEF for more troops because there just ain’t more to send. They are making the best of a bad situation, one that the SECDEF was specifically warned about by GEN Shinseki prior to crossing the line into Iraq in March 03. It is also important to remember that OSD wanted to cut the Army by 2 full division in the 2001 QDR. Imagine if they had been successful!
Anybody who isn’t over there right now has either just returned from either OIF/OEF, is in training/workups to return or in some type of staff job (which are being outsourced to government civilians and/or contractors in order to free up more troops). The Army would love to go to shorter rotations (currently one year in country) but again, there just aren’t enough troops. The Army is attempting to deal with this situation in its move to the Modular Force, which will result in a greater number of brigades available for rotation but it takes time. The Army is also in the process of adding more endstrength but again, that takes time. It’s very easy to cut endstrength but extremely difficult to add it given we are at war and the economy is humming along with low unemployment.