THE Pentagon’s recruiting crisis has deepened with new figures showing that the US Army has failed to meet its target for the fourth consecutive month.

Official gloom was compounded by two polls that painted a bleak picture of the political and human costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the first time since the Iraq war began, more than half the American public believes that the military action to topple Saddam Hussein has not made America safer, one survey suggests. A separate poll showed that the divorce rate among servicemen and women on active duty has soared during the past four years, most notably among officers.

The findings come at a moment of increasing uncertainty in America about the overall strategy in Iraq.

Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate foreign relations committee who has backed military action in Iraq from the beginning, revealed his frustration. He said: “I’m not sure I could, in good faith, a year from now, if things aren’t drastically different, continue to support American forces being in Iraq. We just seem not to get it.”

The sense of drift in Iraq is underlined by the absence of a US ambassador in Baghdad for almost six months. The Senate is holding confirmation hearings for Zalmay Khalilzad, Mr Bush’s choice to replace John Negroponte. The President recalled Mr Negroponte to Washington to become the Administration’s intelligence czar.

The army’s admission that it missed its recruiting target for May by 25 per cent is even worse than it seems. Weeks earlier, army chiefs revised their May target from 8,000 troops to 6,700. They attracted just over 5,000 recruits; 63 per cent of their original goal.

The army is now 8,300 soldiers behind where it hoped to be by this time of the year. Its annual target is to send 80,000 recruits a year to boot camp. US officials said that they hoped to make up the number in the summer when recruiting was traditionally easier, but there is anxiety about the effect of Iraq on their ability to attract the next generation of soldiers.

Pentagon chiefs have sent out an extra 1,000 recruiters to try to make up the numbers. They have also aired a new advertising campaign as well as increasing incentives and offering selected signing-on bonuses of $20,000 (£10,900).

The recruiters are under intense pressure. Some have been charged with bending rules to reach their personal monthly targets.

Army chiefs have also been ordered to try to retain in uniform soldiers who commit offences such as drunkenness that would normally mean instant dismissal.

A Washington Post poll yesterday indicated that nearly three-quarters of Americans thought the number of US casualties in Iraq was “unacceptable”.

A total of 65 per cent believed the US was becoming “bogged down” in its battle with the Sunni and jihadist insurgency.

And nearly six out of ten thought the war was not worth fighting, including a quarter of Republicans and 63 per cent of Independents. The figures match or exceed the highest levels of pessimism previously recorded.

A USA Today poll showed that 3,325 army officers were divorced last year, up by 78 per cent on the year before and a rise of more than threefold from 2000, before the Afghan war.

The figure for enlisted men and women was 7,152 divorces, up 28 per cent on 2003 and 53 per cent on 2000.

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