Via

Associated Press

Army Planning for 4 More Years in Iraq

By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer

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.

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.

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.

About 138,000 U.S. troops, including about 25,000 Marines, are now in Iraq.

“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.

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.

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.

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.

Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted by the Military
Order of the World Wars, a veterans’ organization.

“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.

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.

The Army has changed the way it arranges troop rotations.

Instead of sending a full complement of replacement forces each 12-month
cycle, it is stretching out the rotation over two years.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“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.

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.

“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.”

I guess Bush is going to try for this so he can leave the whole mess up to
someone else to handle. Hearing about these plans makes me wonder if the
constitution of Iraq is a dead issue right now.