WASHINGTON, May 3: The top US military leader has warned that the stress on US forces of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan has raised the risk it will take longer to prevail in conflicts elsewhere in the world, a defence official said on Tuesday. General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, submitted the assessment on Monday to Congress as required by law whenever there is a significant change in the level of risk faced by US forces in meeting the requirements of US contingency plans.

“The risk assessment he makes is classified,” said a senior defence official. “So I’m not going to characterize it in any way beyond that it is higher than the last time he made his assessment.” The United States has about 130,000 troops in Iraq and about 16,000 in Afghanistan as part of its global ‘war on terror’.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, stressed that the assessment does not mean US forces are less capable of defeating an adversary elsewhere in the world, only that it might have trouble meeting all the timelines laid out in US contingency plans.

“First and foremost, the US military remains capable of executing every mission that it is assigned, and the report that went to Congress emphasizes that,” he said.

“We are a nation at war. We have the most battle experienced military in the world probably right now. And while our force has some stress on it right now, because we are a nation at war, there is no doubt that we would prevail against any adversary out there,” he said. Whitman depicted the assessment as an internal management tool that highlights timelines and resources, not one that predicts outcomes.—AFP