VARIOUS CONSTRAINTS

    Some U.S. analysts said although the new QDR made a number of important adjustments and proposals, the implementation of these new ideas won't be easy, due to various constraints.

    First of all, the soaring budgetary deficits and the Bush administration's tax cut initiatives have limited the financial resources for making a broad range of changes.

    Steve Kosiak, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment (CSBA), a Washington-based thinktank, said to achieve the QDR goals, the Pentagon has three choices: adding money, cutting weapons or reducing troops.

    However, none of them seems easy under current circumstances.     

    Loren Thompson, a military analyst with the Lexington Institute, another thinktank, doubted the QDR's claims on the capability of waging overlapping wars around the world.

    The realities in Iraq have already demonstrated the fact that the U.S. military has been seriously stretched, and conducting a similar-size campaign elsewhere is viewed as unrealistic by many analysts.     

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