Army plans to increase size of the force more quickly

Army plans to increase size of the force more quickly

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday he would probably approve a plan to expand the army by 74,000 troops in four years instead of five to ease strains on the force.

Gates said still he had questions about whether the army could accelerate the expansion without lowering the quality of its recruits, or spreading its cadre of mid-level officers too thin.

"They are confident they can do that; they've put together some programs to try and do it, and I'm probably going to recommend that they go ahead and give it a try," he said.

In one of his first acts as defense secretary, Gates set in motion plans in January to increase the size of the active army to 547,000 by 2012 in large part by adding seven thousand troops a year over five years.

Army Secretary Pete Geren told reporters the army now believes it can accomplish that in four years.

"We concluded that we could expedite the growth by a year and that would help relieve stress on the force," Geren said.

He said accelerating the plan would cost an additional 2.7 to 2.8 billion dollars, and require recruiting more than 80,000 troops a year.

But it would add 74,000 troops to its active force and to the army national guard and reserves.

"There are some who have expressed concerns that in this recruiting climate we wouldn't be able to accomplish it. We believe that we could," he said.

Geren said another means of expanding the force is through re-enlistments, which have remained high despite the stress of repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

But Gates said he wanted to see improvements in the percentage of army recruits who were high school graduates, which he said has slipped to around 76 percent, compared to around 95 percent in years past.

"I have been very explicit that, at least as long as I'm here, I will not allow them to lower the standards," he said.

The army, meanwhile, has struggled to meet the demand for troops in Iraq, particularly as some 30,000 additional troops were sent over as part of the US surge strategy.

The army had to extend combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan from a year to 15 months earlier this year to ensure that all units would have at least a year at home between deployments.

General David Petraeus, the US commander in Iraq, said earlier this month that he plans to shrink the number of combat brigades in the country from 20 to 15 by mid-July.

Even so, Geren said it was not yet clear how much the force in Iraq must shrink before it reaches a sustainable level over the long term.

Even as the number of combat troops go down, the number of support troops and trainers could go up as the US military shifts to a new mission of training and supporting Iraqi security forces, he indicated.

One unresolved issue, he said is whether bringing down the brigades "will that require more or less soldiers ... (in) various types of training teams and support teams," he said.

"It's a mosaic of assignments over there that will determine what is sustainable," he said, adding that the the mix of forces would be up to Petraeus.

But the levels of combat troops versus support forces "don't necessarily move in tandem -- one could go up and the other could go down," he said.

"I think it's important as we think about the demand on the resources of the army we have to recognize the possibility that we could have them move in different directions," he said.

Geren said the active duty army was on track to grow to 519,000 this year.

The 74,000 troop increase that Geren referred to included an immediate permanent increase of 30,000 troops in the army's authorized end-strength from 482,400; 35,000 active duty troops to be added over five years; and 9,000 national guard and reserve troops to be added by 2013.

Labels: U.S. Military

posted by Greg @ 8:36 AM Comments: 0