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 Gen. George Casey, chief of staff of the Army, said that as the number of brigades in Iraq comes down from 20 to 15 over the next several months, officials will be able to begin increasing the amount of time soldiers spend at home between tours.
But Casey cautioned that he is "not going public with that or final with that until I'm sure we're not going back" on it.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said that moving from 15-month to
12-month deployments could come by the end of the year. But in comments to
the Association of the U.S. Army's Institute of Land Warfare, Casey echoed
Army predictions that the shorter tours could be announced this summer, and
soon afterward would affect brigades heading overseas
As top military leaders have visited U.S. bases and troops abroad, they have heard persistent complaints about the 15-month deployments from soldiers and their families.
Casey said that as plans continue to increase the size of the Army, and as conditions allow the reduction of brigades in Iraq, the Army will be able to better space out the deployments and ease the strain on soldiers.
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 Plans are to increase the number of the active-duty Army, Army Guard and Army Reserve by 74,000 overall, with the active-duty force growing by 65,000 to a total of 547,000. In October, top Army leaders said they planned to move faster to increase the size of the force
--adding the full 74,000 soldiers by 2010, two years sooner than originally planned.
Originally the growth was to take place over five years, now it will be done in three.
The active-duty troop increase --which will boost the number of combat brigades from the 2006 level of 42 to 48
--will cost $2.63 billion.
Roughly half of the 65,000 increase has already been achieved.
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On the Net:
Defense Department: http://www.defenselink.mil/
[Associated
Press; By LOLITA C. BALDOR]
Copyright 2007 The Associated
Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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