Rocky Mountain News January 09, 2007
Staffing troop surge may be difficult, analysts say
By Dick Foster
If President Bush orders a surge of additional troops to Iraq, some military analysts wonder where the extra forces will be found.
The analysts already have voiced concern that the Army is stretched too thin in Iraq and Afghanistan even before any potential troop increase in Iraq.
"What's been proposed is that (Army) brigades that were getting ready to go over there in the spring, from March to June, should go over there now, and that everybody else would get moved up a little bit," said John Pike, director of the research group GlobalSecurity.org.
In addition, Army troops might remain in Iraq for 15-month tours instead of 12 months, and Marines probably would extend their six-month tours to 12 or 15 months, Pike said.
The changes were outlined in a surge plan proposed last month by Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, and retired Army Gen. Jack Keane, Pike said.
The surge also could require expansion of the Army by four more brigades (about 3,500 soldiers each), or 14,000 soldiers, and increased use of National Guard troops to sustain higher troop levels in Iraq.
All of the changes expose the problem that has prompted warnings from some military observers that Army and Marine force levels are currently too small to escalate troop numbers in Iraq or sustain such an escalation.
The Army, on paper, supposedly has reached its target strength of 43 combat brigades during a massive reorganization done simultaneously with fighting in Iraq, Pike said.
Theoretically, the expanded number of brigades would be almost enough to sustain the Army's original goal of giving brigades two years at home for every year of service in Iraq.
But at Fort Carson and other posts, units are returning to Iraq after little more than one year of rest.
For instance, the 3rd Brigade Heavy Combat Team returned home in November after a year in Iraq, its second one-year tour since April 2003. The brigade had 18 months between deployments because it was being reorganized under an Army program converting large division-sized units into smaller, free- standing brigades.
Fort Carson's 2nd Brigade Combat Team returned to Iraq in October for its second tour after 15 months at home. The post's 3rd Armored Cavalry Division returned to Iraq in March 2005 for its second tour only 12 months after returning from its first.
A surge could shorten even those abbreviated rest breaks, breaching a 12-month rest period that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Peter Schoomaker has described as a "red line" that he did not want to cross, The Washington Post reported Monday.
Pike was skeptical of Schoomaker's resolve in the face of any contrary presidential plan.
"If they have decided it's going to take another 30,000 troops, do you think that Schoomaker is really going to say, 'Sorry, I can't do that'?" Pike said.
"No," Pike said. "He'll get his people in the room and say, 'Let's figure out how to make this happen.' "
© Copyright 2007, The E.W. Scripps Co.
