This is going to make the still-unresolved Plame case look like a walk in the park.

Quote of note:

The officials who discussed the assessment demanded anonymity because it is a classified document.

Pentagon Says Iraq Effort Limits Ability to Fight Other Conflicts
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, May 2 - The concentration of American troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan limits the Pentagon's ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts, the military's highest ranking officer reported to Congress on Monday.

The officer, Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, informed Congress in a classified report that major combat operations elsewhere in the world, should they be necessary, would probably be more protracted and produce higher American and foreign civilian casualties because of the commitment of Pentagon resources in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A half dozen Pentagon civilian and military officials were discussing the outlines of the report on Monday as it was being officially delivered to Congress; one government official provided a copy to The New York Times. The officials who discussed the assessment demanded anonymity because it is a classified document.

General Myers cited reduced stockpiles of precision weapons, which were depleted during the invasion of Iraq, and the stress on reserve units, which fulfill the bulk of combat support duties in Iraq, as among the factors that would limit the Pentagon's ability to prevail as quickly as war planners once predicted in other potential conflicts.

The report this year acknowledges that the nation's armed forces are operating under a higher level of risk than cited in the report last year, said Pentagon and military officials who have read both documents.

Despite the limitations, General Myers was unwavering in his assessment that American forces would win any major combat operation. The armed forces, he concluded, are "fully capable" of meeting all Washington's military objectives.

The general's report appears to provide a slightly different assessment than President Bush offered at a news conference last week when he said the number of American troops in Iraq would not limit Washington military options elsewhere.

Mr. Bush said he had asked General Myers, "Do you feel that we've limited our capacity to deal with other problems because of our troop levels in Iraq?"

"And the answer is no, he didn't feel a bit limited," Mr. Bush said. "It feels like we got plenty of capacity."

Late Monday, a Pentagon official dismissed any serious contradiction between the president and the general. "The two comments are consistent in that no one in the military feels at all limited in the ability to respond to any contingency," the official said. "What the risk assessment discusses is the nature of the response."

Another Pentagon official emphasized that the risk assessment should be understood as a rating of the military's ability to successfully perform its mission based on a set of standards set by the Joint Staff, which is different from the broad statement of military capability given by the president at his news conference.