Fixing damage done by Rumsfeld will take long time

By Joseph L. Galloway

WASHINGTON - Anyone else might be embarrassed when not one but two detailed studies of the way he's doing business conclude that his plans and assumptions are totally wrong, but not Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld.

A recent Rand Corp. study commissioned by the Pentagon of the U.S. Army in this time of war concluded that without an increase in manpower the Army ``simply cannot sustain the force levels needed to break the back of the insurgent movement'' in Iraq.

Yet another study, conducted by the Defense Department's own Institute for Defense Analyses, concluded that the Army's transformation program, intended to add combat brigades without boosting manpower, cuts the number of maneuver battalions in those brigades while adding more headquarters troops.