Washington ? Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld on Wednesday disputed reports suggesting that the U.S. military is stretched thin and close to a snapping point, asserting “the force is not broken.”

“This armed force is enormously capable,” Rumsfeld told reporters at a Pentagon briefing. “In addition, it’s battle- hardened. It’s not a peacetime force that has been in barracks or garrisons.”

Rumsfeld spoke a day after The Associated Press reported that an unreleased study conducted for the Pentagon said the Army is being overextended may not be able to retain and recruit enough troops to defeat the insurgency in Iraq.

Congressional Democrats released a report Wednesday that also concluded the U.S. military is under severe stress.

Reports suggesting that the military is close to the breaking point “is just not consistent with the facts,” Rumsfeld said.

He said there were over 1.4 million active U.S. troops, and some 2 million total – counting National Guard and Reserve units – of which only 138,000 people were in Iraq.

In the earlier report obtained by The Associated Press, Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote it under Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency.