STRETCHED TOO THIN?

Four Army divisions — more than 100,000 soldiers, 40 percent of the active-duty force — will not be fully combat-ready for up to six months next year, leaving the nation short of ready troops in the event of a major conflict in North Korea or elsewhere, a senior Army official said yesterday

The four divisions — the 82nd Airborne, 101th Airborne, the 1st Armored and the 4th Infantry — will be returning from Iraq next spring, to be replaced by three others, with a fourth rotating into Afghanistan. That would leave only two active-duty divisions available to fight in other locales.

The official said the four returning divisions will be rated either C-3 or C-4, the Army's two lowest readiness categories. C-3 means a division is capable of performing only some of its combat missions, and C-4 means a division needs additional manpower, training or equipment in order to fight...

Retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a former division commander and staunch advocate of more Army forces, said four to five divisions below the C-1 rating "means literally half the Army is broken and not ready to fight."

Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, said the Army's system for gauging readiness shouldn't be overemphasized.

"It's sort of like the New York Yankees in January," O'Hanlon said. "Their readiness is lower because they haven't gone back to spring training. But they're still a damn good baseball team."