- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The
Army is asking some National Guard troops serving in Iraq to volunteer
to stay on active duty beyond a statutory two-year limit for such service,
officials said on Wednesday, in a fresh sign of the strain on the U.S.
military amid operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said "we don't
plan at the moment" to extend such reserve troops involuntarily beyond
the two-year limit, but added "one should never say never."
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- "The country's at war," Rumsfeld told a Pentagon
briefing. "There's no doubt but that we have mobilized significant
numbers of (National) Guard and Reserve forces, and that the facts on the
ground will determine what it is we do."
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- Lt. Col. Chris Rodney, an Army spokesman at the Pentagon,
said that "all the options are still open right now."
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- The issue is being confronted as about 400 soldiers from
the Arkansas National Guard, serving with the 39th Brigade Combat Team
in Iraq, approach the two-year limit, set by federal law and Pentagon policy,
for reserve troops mobilized into active duty from civilian life.
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- But with the Pentagon relying heavily on reservists to
maintain troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, many other troops may soon
be bumping up against the two-year limit.
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- Rodney said Army officials have already asked Arkansas
National Guard soldiers whether they would be willing to remain beyond
the two years on a "voluntary" basis, and that only a small number
said they would be unwilling.
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- David Chu, under secretary of defense for personnel and
readiness, detailed Pentagon policy on the two-year limit in a memo shortly
after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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- Rumsfeld said "the two-year limit is an interesting
question," noting that Chu's memo barred mobilization for reservists
longer than 24 months cumulatively, while U.S. law set the limit at 24
consecutive months of service.
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- The Pentagon has taken a series of unusual steps to maintain
force levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, while still opposing congressional
proposals to enlarge the military by tens of thousands of troops. The United
States has about 140,000 troops in Iraq and about 20,000 in Afghanistan.
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- The Army has issued "stop-loss" orders preventing
tens of thousands of soldiers designated to serve in Iraq or Afghanistan
from leaving the military if their volunteer service commitment ends during
their deployment.
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- The Army has notified 5,600 former soldiers from the
Individual Ready Reserve, a rarely tapped personnel pool, that they are
being involuntarily mobilized and deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. And
the Pentagon extended duty in Iraq for about 20,000 troops three months
beyond a promised one-year stint, and opted to shift 3,600 troops from
South Korea to Iraq.
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- About 40 percent of U.S. forces in Iraq are National
Guard and Reserve troops summoned from civilian life into active duty.
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