The following conversation made it painfully clear that much of the hardware being pushed into the Gulf has no possible use against Iraq. He assumes the mission he is being sent on is aimed at Iran. He was not convinced a decision had been made to attack, but at the very least it was a show of force to let Iran know we meant business.

I also asked him how well carrier groups are at operating in a relatively confined space like the gulf. He said they were not designed for such purposes but they had been praciticng a lot and were getting very good at dealing witht he lack of space. Finally, he wanted to point out the amount of long term damage being done to the military due to the costs of the war in Iraq - specifically the cost of all the equipment and the damage to the personell structure.

To sum up our long and disturbing conversation:

The much if not all of our carrier capacity in the Gulf is pointed at Iran, this is what they are wargaming and what the officers are worried about.

The Persian Gulf is not a great place for carriers. For all of our power and the capacity of our officers, any ship in the Gulf is very exposed to missile fire.

Even if not one solider had been killed or wounded in Iraq, the costs of the war in equipment, damage to recruitment efforts, readiness erosion, and morale would still take at least a decade to revoer from, likely longer.

As we well know many in the military are as concerned as we are.