- WASHINGTON -- The Army is
planning for the possibility of keeping the current number of soldiers
in Iraq -- well over 100,000 -- for four more years, the Army's top general
said Saturday.
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- In an Associated Press interview, Gen. Peter Schoomaker
said the Army is prepared for the "worst case" in terms of the
required level of troops in Iraq. He said the number could be adjusted
lower if called for by slowing the force rotation or by shortening tours
for soldiers.
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- Schoomaker said commanders in Iraq and others who are
in the chain of command will decide how many troops will be needed next
year and beyond. His responsibility is to provide them, trained and equipped.
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- About 138,000 U.S. troops, including about 25,000 Marines,
are now in Iraq.
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- "We are now into '07-'09 in our planning,"
Schoomaker said, having completed work on the set of combat and support
units that will be rotated into Iraq over the coming year for 12-month
tours of duty.
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- Schoomaker's comments come amid indications from Bush
administration officials and commanders in Iraq that the size of the U.S.
force may be scaled back next year if certain conditions are achieved.
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- Among those conditions: an Iraqi constitution must be
drafted in coming days; it must be approved in a national referendum; and
elections must be held for a new government under that charter.
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- Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip
back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the
pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army
could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for
many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyond President
Bush's term in office, which ends in January 2009.
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- Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted
by the Military Order of the World Wars, a veterans' organization.
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- "We're staying 18 months to two years ahead of ourselves"
in planning which active-duty and National Guard and Reserve units will
be provided to meet the commanders' needs, Schoomaker said in the interview.
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- The main active-duty combat units that are scheduled
to go to Iraq in the coming year are the 101st Airborne Division, based
at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas.
Both did one-year tours earlier in the war.
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- The Army has changed the way it arranges troop rotations.
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- Instead of sending a full complement of replacement forces
each 12-month cycle, it is stretching out the rotation over two years.
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- The current rotation, for 2005-07, will overlap with
the 2006-08 replacements. Beyond that, the Army is piecing together the
plan for the 2007-09 switch, Schoomaker said.
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- With the recent deployments of National Guard brigades
from Georgia and Pennsylvania, the National Guard has seven combat brigades
in Iraq -- the most of the entire war -- plus thousands of support troops.
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- Along with the Army Reserve and Marine Reserve, they
account for about 40 percent of the total U.S. forces in Iraq. Schoomaker
said that will be scaled back next year to about 25 percent as newly expanded
active-duty divisions such as the 101st Airborne enter the rotation.
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- August has been the deadliest month of the war for the
National Guard and Reserve, with at least 42 fatalities thus far. Schoomaker
disputed the suggestion by some that the Guard and Reserve units are not
fully prepared for the hostile environment of Iraq.
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- "I'm very confident that there is no difference
in the preparation" of active-duty soldiers and the reservists, who
normally train one weekend a month and two weeks each summer, unless they
are mobilized. Once called to active duty, they go through the same training
as active-duty units.
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- In internal surveys, some in the reserve forces have
indicated to Army leaders that they think they are spending too much time
in pre-deployment training, not too little, Schoomaker said.
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- "Consistently, what we've been (hearing) is, `We're
better than you think we are, and we could do this faster,'" he said.
"I can promise you that we're not taking any risk in terms of what
we're doing to prepare people."
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- Copyright © 2005 The Associated Press. All rights
reserved. The information contained in the AP News report may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without the prior written authority
of The Associated Press.
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- http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050820/ap_on
_go_ca_st_pe/army_chief_interview
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