Outside the Beltway

Army Planning for Four More Years in Iraq

James Joyner · Sunday, August 21, 2005 · 2 comments

Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker told the AP that the Army is doing “worst case” planning for Iraq extending into 2009, after President Bush will have left office.

Army Planning for Four More Years in Iraq

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.

See also “Top general: Army preparing for 4 more years”

Given the reported problems with recruitment and maintaining the current operations tempo in Iraq, one would certainly hope the Army is planning for the long term. One, of course, also hopes that the “worst case” will not come true.

Changing the rotation pattern strikes me as quite logical, if overdue. The current system was put in place before the insurgency/foreign terrorist influx took place. A different personnel system is needed to sustain a longer term mission.