"Your military is ready today to execute whatever mission the civilian leadership of this country gives us to do ... there is an open dialogue between the civilian leadership and the military leadership," Marines General Peter Pace said Friday.

Pace was speaking after several US newspapers reported that top ranking generals are opposed to attacking Iraq in the near-term future, saying that it would be a heavy burden on US troops, equipment and logistics.

According to a New York Times report, the generals say the United States is already stretched by its operations in Afghanistan, the Balkans and the Philippines.

Although the administration of US President George W. Bush would love to topple the regime of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the White House has no plans to attack the country right now.

"I have no war plans on my desk, and it's the truth," Bush said at a joint press conference in Berlin Thursday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

But Bush said the Iraqi leader remained a threat as a "dictator who's gassed his own people" and who is working to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

In the meantime, European allies of the United States are opposed to a war aimed at forcing Saddam out of power, as are many Arab allies of the United States -- accusing it of being too supportive of Israel in the Middle East conflict.

US generals and admirals say the United States, because of that situation, would find it more difficult to establish a coalition in any impending war on Iraq than during the 1990-1991 Gulf War, according to USA Today.

More specifically, however, overstretching of troops is of even greater concern to the military bosses.

According to the Washington Post, General Tommy Franks, commander of operations in Afghanistan and in the Gulf, estimates it would require 200,000 troops for the United States to intervene in Iraq -- higher than other experts' figures.

That is half the number deployed after Iraq invaded Kuwait 11 years ago.

And some 60,000 Americans were mobilized for Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11 attacks. Around 7,000 US soldiers are still stationed there.

Meanwhile, General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and army, navy, air force and marines commanders have voiced two primary concerns to civilian leaders of the military, including Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, according to the Post.

The first is linked to the possible use of chemical warfare by Saddam Hussein, who is suspected of having accumulated large numbers of deadly biological weapons.

The second worry is over potential heavy casualties that could happen during bloody urban warfare.

Still other military leaders want to know who might be the successor to Saddam to know how worthwhile it would be to oust the Iraqi leader.

Still other military brass are critical of their colleagues' overcautious stance, according to The New York Times Friday.

However, the Times, citing officials, reported that a top-secret Pentagon war game had "revealed that expanding the campaign against terrorism to a country like Iraq would place severe strains on personnel and cause deep shortages of certain critical weapons."

"Even so, the computer-simulated exercise found that the armed forces could still wage and win a major regional conflict while maintaining other global commitments," the Times article said.

"The highly classified war game uncovered worrisome shortages in military equipment, including that used for surveillance and electronic-jamming, as well as refueling tankers and transport aircraft that would be required to conduct a war on the scale of attacking Iraq or North Korea," it added.

Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said Friday he was not so stupid as to announce any "serious shortage" of anything. "One of the lessons learned is that from conflict to conflict the rate of usage of different things changes," he told reporters.

All rights reserved. � 2002 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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