The newspaper said the survey, conducted in the spring, found that almost half of army reserve soldiers believed their units were not "well prepared" for their wartime missions.

Army reservists who had served in Iraq graded their units' readiness for war even lower, the report said.

Only 45 percent of those veterans said their unit was "well prepared for its wartime mission", compared with 54 percent of army reservists overall, according to the paper.

It said the survey had been sent electronically to 55,794 reservists in all military branches in April, May and June. Thirty-nine percent of them responded.

"We do the survey as a source of leading indicators to adjust our personnel policies," the Journal quoted David Chu, under-secretary of defense for personnel and readiness, as saying.

As a result of the survey, the Pentagon in some instances tripled enlistment bonuses to as much as 15,000 dollars for a six-year commitment, the paper quotes Chu as saying.

The paper said the results also indicated that the desire of the part-time soldiers to stay in the Reserves and National Guard was eroding.

About 59 percent of army reservists and 62 percent of army National Guard soldiers said they intended to stay in the military, down about 10 percentage points from 12 months earlier, according to the report.

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