Lower Army recruitment standards are simply “buying problems in the future”

Another victim of the Bush administration’s inadequate planning for the invasion of Iraq is the quality of our standing army. This from the International Herald Tribune:

Two weeks ago, the Pentagon announced the "good news" that the army had met its recruiting goal for October, the first month in a five-year plan to add 65,000 new soldiers to the ranks by 2012.

But Pentagon statistics show the army met that goal by accepting a higher percentage of enlistees with criminal records, drug or alcohol problems, or health conditions that would have ordinarily disqualified them from service.

In each fiscal year since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, statistics show, the army has accepted a growing percentage of recruits who do not meet its own minimum fitness standards. The October statistics show that at least 1 of every 5 recruits required a waiver to join the service, leading military analysts to conclude that the army is lowering standards more than it has in decades.

"The across-the-board lowering of the standards is buying problems in the future," said John Hutson, a retired rear admiral, dean of the Franklin Pierce Law Center in New Hampshire, and a former judge advocate general of the navy. "You are going to have more people getting in trouble, more people washing out" before finishing their tour of duty.

You can read the entire article here.