On December 14th, 2006 General Peter J Schoomaker, the Army's Chief of Staff testified before Congress concerning the stress on the US army as a result of the war in Iraq. Amongst other things he said.... began the Iraq war "flat-footed" with a $56 billion equipment shortage and 500,000 fewer soldiers than during the 1991 Persian Gulf War. . "At this pace, without recurrent access to the reserve components, through remobilization, we will break the active component," Coin Powell said....The "active Army is about broken," most recently, in an interview commenting about current policy in Iraq. General Thomas White; now retired, formerly Secretary to the Army 2001-2003 said in response to a question "Is the Army broken?" "Yeah, I think so. We're on the brink. We are in a situation where we are grossly overdeployed, and it is unlike any other period in the 229-year history of the Army.... So what we are all worried about is that the manpower situation will come unglued. ... " Significant sources that include both active senior military and past senior military acknowledge that the active army is in terrible shape due to the relatively small number of soldiers within the military, financial shortages to support ground forces, the long term ongoing war in Iraq, and no direction from above to dramatically alter this situation. Continued efforts in Iraq will only exacerbate this situation. Further in response to the comments about increasing the size of the military including comments by President Bush recently, and Kerry made in 2004; the comments reflected increasing the size of the army, independant of considerations of sending more troops into Iraq. They are factual.