WASHINGTON (Bloomberg) — Former Secretary of State Colin Powell said the US Army is “about broken” from the Iraq conflict and cast doubt on whether the military could or should boost the number of troops in the country.“There really are no additional troops” to send, Powell said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” programme. “The current active Army is not large enough and the Marine Corps is not large enough for the kinds of missions they are being asked to perform.”

Powell, 69, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War and the nation’s chief foreign policy official during President George W. Bush’s first term, said the war has made the US “a little less safe” because it has limited the military’s ability to respond to another crisis.

The US is at a crossroads in Iraq as Bush reviews assessments from outside experts and administration advisers in preparation for announcing his next steps in Iraq after the first of the year.

Among the options the president is considering is sending 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq temporarily, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post reported last week, citing unidentified administration officials. Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona has been the leading congressional advocate for such an increase, saying the US never committed enough troops to the war to accomplish the mission.

“We have tried this surge of troops over the summer” and it didn’t work, Powell said, referring to an operation in which the US. shifted more troops into Baghdad to help local forces break a cycle of attacks and reprisals between Sunni and Shiite Muslim factions. The US military has acknowledged that effort wasn’t successful as bombings and other violence in the capital continues.

Additions to the 140,000 US military personnel now in Iraq would have to be created by extending duty tours for some soldiers and Marines already there or accelerating the arrival of forces scheduled to go, Powell said. He said he agreed with General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, who told lawmakers last week that the Iraq war has strained the military’s ability to wage the global war on terrorism.

“All of my contacts within the Army suggest that the Army has a serious problem in the active force, and it’s a problem that will spread into the Guard and Reserves,” Powell said.

Any proposal to add forces should be made with a “clear” mission outlined and a definite schedule for how long they will be there, Powell said.