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Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, issued his most dire assessment yet of the toll of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan on the nation's main ground force. At one point, he banged his hand on a House committee-room table, saying the continuation of today's Pentagon policies is "not right." ....The burden on the Army's 507,000 active-duty soldiers — who now spend more time at war than at home — is simply too great, he said. "At this pace, without recurrent access to the reserve components, through remobilization, we will break the active component," he said, drawing murmurs around the hearing room. I'd be more sympathetic toward Schoomaker's pleas for more soldiers if the Army had a credible plan for using them to turn things around in Iraq. But I haven't heard one yet. He's putting the cart before the horse.