- WASHINGTON -- U.S. Army leaders
are to announce as early as today a plan to start relieving exhausted troops
in Iraq with thousands of soldiers from U.S.-based units and an additional
10,000 National Guards members who will be called to active duty.
-
- Uniformed military officials told the Free Press Washington
bureau that acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. John Keane will designate both
active-duty and Army National Guard units that will be placed on the list
to head to Iraq so that units that have served their 1-year tours of duty
can be rotated home. About 146,000 troops are now in Iraq.
-
- In Michigan, National Guard officials say they've heard
about a nationwide deployment of 10,000 troops, but have not received any
specific call-up orders. Currently, 1,000 of the state's 13,000 Michigan
National Guard members are deployed somewhere abroad or in the nation.
-
- The Pentagon plan was revealed by several senior military
uniformed officers who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are
prohibited from going outside the chain of command.
-
- This plan will require the call-up of two specially trained
enhanced brigades of the Army National Guard for 1-year tours in Iraq,
in addition to three active-duty brigades also destined for Iraq as replacements.
The 1st Cavalry Division at Ft. Hood, Texas, will also play a key part
in Keane's assignment plans.
-
- The rotation would be on a one-for-one basis so that
units already in Iraq would know who is destined to replace them and, more
important, when, said the people who spoke to the Free Press.
-
- There are already more than 200,000 Guard and Reserve
troops of all services on active duty out of a total part-time force of
900,000 nationwide. These fresh call-ups of two 5,000-person brigades could
put additional pressures on the Guard -- which only recently has had to
deal with longer and more frequent tours of active service.
-
- The three active-duty brigades likely to draw Iraq duty
this year include a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division at Ft. Bragg,
N.C., a brigade of the 2nd Division based at Ft. Lewis, Wash., and a brigade
of the 1st Armored Division based at Ft. Riley, Kan.
-
- The scramble to find replacement units for Iraq duty
is stark testimony to just how thinly the 480,000-strong U.S. Army is stretched.
-
- Of the Army's 33 active-duty brigades, 21 are deployed
overseas -- 16 in Iraq, two in Afghanistan, two in South Korea, and one
in Bosnia. All but three of the rest are either preparing for one of those
missions, recovering and retraining after one of those missions or held
in reserve.
-
- In addition to units tapped for Iraq assignments, a brigade
of the 10th Mountain Division at Ft. Drum, N.Y., is to rotate to Afghanistan
shortly to replace a brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division.
-
- The military informants said Keane's announcements will
be detailed and are intended to provide the forces that Gen. John Abizaid
of the U.S. Central Command needs to continue progress toward reconstruction
in Iraq.
-
- Keane had suggested that activated Guard brigades be
given as much as 120 days of intensive training before they are deployed
to duty in Iraq, one person familiar with the plan said. But Guard commanders
responded that many of the enhanced infantry and mechanized brigades recently
completed training rotations. They said these units may require as little
as a month to be ready to go.
-
- At the height of post-9/11 deployments, about 3,000 Michigan
National Guard members were on active duty. One unit -- Military Police
out of Taylor -- was deployed last week for a month of training at Ft.
Dix, N.J., and then a year at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. Another unit is to
go to Bosnia for a regularly scheduled rotation later this year.
-
- Two units -- one from Iraq and one from Washington, D.C.
-- are scheduled to come home in the next two weeks.
-
- _____
-
- Staff writer Kathleen Gray contributed to this report.
|
