On December 19, 2006, President Bush “summoned reporters from the Washington Post to the Oval Office to announce that he would support a force increase. ‘We need to reset our military,’ he told them. ‘There’s no question the military has been used a lot.’ The move was a significant reversal after years of denying the need for more men and women in uniform. …Bush authorized [Secretary of Defense] Robert Gates to explore adding seventy thousand soldiers and marines.”
– Peter Baker, Days of Fire, Page 521