The American Army is on the ropes. "The wheels are about to come off!"

President Bush and Donald Rumsfeld convinced themselves that they could win the war in Iraq on the cheap. They never sent enough troops to do the job. Now the burden of trying to fight a long and bitter war with too few troops is taking a terrible toll on the men and women in uniform.

Last December, the top general in the Army Reserve warned that his organization was "rapidly degenerating into a 'broken' force" because of the Pentagon's "dysfunctional" policies and demands placed on the Reserve by the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

As one of my colleagues at The Times, David Unger of the editorial board, wrote, "The Army's commitments have dangerously and rapidly expanded, while recruitment has plunged."

Soldiers are being sent into the crucible of Iraq for three and even four tours, a form of Russian roulette that is unconscionable.

This is the real bottom line as it pertains to the war in Iraq. Regardless of what public opinion is, or whether Bush lied about the intelligence in the lead up to war (he did!), or whether or not we have an adequate exit strategy, the real factor determining how much longer we can continue the fight in Iraq is whether we have soldiers to send.

We are literally running out! And who can blame them? To join the military now is to guarantee that you will, at some point, be fired upon. Whether you be Army, Marines, Air force, or National Guard you will serve in Iraq. Now compound that with sinking public opinion polls, lack of adequate body armor, no coherent exit strategy, and you have a recipe for disaster.

This will not just affect the military in the short term it could keep numbers low for the next ten to fifteen years. There is only one way to start the healing process. Bring our military home! Now!

Get them out of there before they start to die in increasing numbers and before the enemy realizes how week we truly are at this point.