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      Ranks Will Swell During Restructuring
 
 

By Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, January 30, 2004; Page A19

An additional 30,000 soldiers authorized this week by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on a temporary basis could swell the ranks of the Army for five years or longer, depending upon troop requirements in Iraq, Afghanistan and other potential conflicts, a senior Army official said yesterday.

Briefing reporters one day after Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, disclosed the increase in congressional testimony, the official said a wholesale restructuring of the nation's largest military service should produce efficiencies that would enable the Army eventually to return to its current authorized troop strength of about 480,000 troops.

But the official, who briefed on the condition that he would not be identified, said it is not certain the Army would be able to cut strength in four to five years from the 510,000-troop level authorized by Rumsfeld under emergency authority approved after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

"It really depends on world situations," the official said. "We think, as we're restructuring, we may be able to come down off the 510,000 over time. . . . But I don't know yet."

On Wednesday, Schoomaker said the addition of 30,000 personnel would be needed for about four years so the service could sustain deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently more than 130,000 troops, as the Army restructures 10 active-duty divisions and much of its reserve and National Guard forces.

Elaborating on Schoomaker's remarks, the official called that restructuring "the most comprehensive change and most monumental change the Army has undertaken in 50 years."

The current plan for fulfilling both overseas commitments and restructuring calls for the use of "stop-loss" orders to keep all deployed units at or above 100 percent of authorized strength until new soldiers -- with a heavy emphasis on infantrymen -- can be recruited this year and next.

Currently, stop-loss orders, holding soldiers in the Army for between 120 and 180 days beyond their regular tours, have been used to increase overall troop strength to 493,000 personnel. Continued use of stop-loss will further increase troop strength to beyond 500,000 over the next five months, the official said.

But the Army plans to discontinue the use of stop-loss orders in 2005, with 10,000 recruits entering the service, the official said.

Schoomaker's restructuring plan calls for an increase in the active-duty combat brigades from 33 to 48, creating more versatile units available for rapid overseas deployment. Each new brigade will be more self-sustaining and have more combat power than current brigades, enabling the Defense Department to respond to smaller-scale contingencies by deploying a brigade of 5,000 soldiers, instead of a much larger division, with 20,000 soldiers.

There will be three types of brigades: heavy, with tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles; light, with motorized infantrymen; and airborne, with helicopters and paratroopers. Commanders then could deploy a headquarters structure from one division to command heavy, light and airborne brigades from three other divisions.

In assessing the current Army structure, still largely a Cold War force, Schoomaker and his staff decided the service had far too much artillery and air defense artillery, the official said. They now plan to convert 39 field artillery battalions and 10 air defense battalions to military police, civil affairs and light infantry units in greater demand for fighting the global war on terrorism.
 
 

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