Col. Tom James, who commands the division's Second Brigade, acknowledged that his unit's equipment levels had fallen so low that it now had no tanks or other armored vehicles to use in training and that his soldiers were rated as largely untrained in attack and defense.

The enormous strains on equipment and personnel, because of longer-than-expected deployments, have left active Army units with little combat power in reserve. The Second Brigade, for example, has only half of the roughly 3,500 soldiers it is supposed to have. The unit trains on computer simulators, meant to recreate the experience of firing a tank's main gun or driving in a convoy under attack.

"It's a good tool before you get the equipment you need," Colonel James said. But a few years ago, he said, having a combat brigade in a mechanized infantry division at such a low state of readiness would have been "unheard of."

Other than the 17 brigades in Iraq and Afghanistan, only two or three combat brigades in the entire Army -- perhaps 7,000 to 10,000 troops -- are fully trained and sufficiently equipped to respond quickly to crises, said a senior Army general.

Since this summer, 1,000 soldiers a month have been arriving at Fort Stewart, 400 of them just out of basic training. As a result, the First and Third Brigades are now at or near their authorized troop strength, but many of the soldiers are raw.

The two brigades started receiving tanks and other equipment to begin training in the field only in the last month, leaving the division only partly able to respond immediately if called to Korea, General Lynch said.
"I'm confident two of the four brigade combat teams would say, `O.K., let's go,' " General Lynch said in an interview. "The Second and Fourth Brigades would say, `O.K., boss, but we've got no equipment. What are we going to use?' So we'd have to figure out where we're going to draw their equipment."

Given the lengthy lead time required for calling up, training, equipping and deploying Guard forces, Pentagon officials said that if more Guard members were mobilized, it would probably be for a rotation that begins in 2008.

Even so, Pentagon and military officials said that it was unlikely that any decision on a Guard mobilization would be necessary for several months or even into next year, which would place any announcement beyond the November mid-term Congressional elections.
To take on a greater load in Iraq and remedy existing equipment shortfalls, the Guard needs $23 billion over five years, Guard officials say.
"There is no brigade in the United States Army active, Guard or reserve that is completely ready back at home," General Blum [the head of the National Guard Bureau] said. "That is to ensure that every brigade overseas is completely ready. And by ready I mean completely equipped. Right now, the key to readiness of the total force is equipping it, resetting it and modernizing it. It is a function of time and money."