U.S. Commander Wants Brief Pause In Troop Cuts

Team Infidel

Forum Spin Doctor
New York Times
February 28, 2008 By Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt
TAMPA, Fla. — The commander of American forces in the Middle East says he will endorse a brief pause in troop reductions from Iraq this summer, but then will seek a resumption of withdrawals to ease stress on the overall military and allow him to balance deployments across the volatile region.
Those comments by Adm. William J. Fallon, leader of the military’s Central Command, added to indications that American troop levels in Iraq would hold at about 140,000, at least temporarily, after the departure by July of five additional combat brigades ordered to Iraq last year by President Bush.
But Admiral Fallon, in an interview on Tuesday at his headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base here, made clear his appraisal that the halt in reductions should be temporary — and brief — just long enough to allow “all the dust to settle” and to provide an opportunity for “a clear-eyed view” of the way ahead.
Admiral Fallon’s comments struck a somewhat different tone from the one voiced privately by Bush administration officials who have said they advocate holding to troop levels before the “surge” for some months, perhaps even until the end of the administration. Some ground commanders in Iraq also support a delayed timetable for further reductions, to maintain security advances earned by the troop increase.
Admiral Fallon said he advocated a strategy that would “transfer more and more responsibility for security in Iraq to Iraqi security forces and, at the same time, withdrawing a substantial amount of our combat forces.” American military personnel remaining in Iraq, he said, would mostly be in the “supporting, sustaining, advising, training and mentoring role.”
The admiral did not offer a specific timetable for reducing troop levels in Iraq, which is expected to be a central part of the recommendations presented to President Bush over coming weeks by Admiral Fallon, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the senior commander in Iraq, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Senior military officers already say it is quite possible that no specific timetable for troop withdrawals beyond July will emerge from the commanders’ sessions with the president this spring, and that instead a series of monthly reviews will be put in place for assessing, and ordering, troop levels beyond the summer.
The monthly reviews would allow the military to manage troop levels in Iraq more efficiently, reshaping the force to fit an evolving security situation — instead of the current system, in which General Petraeus, Admiral Fallon and the Joint Chiefs reported to the president last September and are set to return six months later.
Achieving success in Iraq has “gone a little slower than I anticipated,” Admiral Fallon said. “Nonetheless, it is progressing.”
In the interview on Tuesday, Admiral Fallon also revealed that as American forces were reduced in Iraq, he hoped to increase deployments to Afghanistan by adding “a couple of thousand” military trainers to support Afghan Army and police forces.
In previewing his stance on force levels in Iraq, Admiral Fallon appears to be in step with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, the Joint Chiefs and General Petraeus, at least in the sense that all are determined to avoid a repeat of tensions among commanders overseas and at the Pentagon over the allotment of limited numbers of troops to Iraq, Afghanistan and other trouble spots around the world.
Pentagon planners confirmed this week that the American troop level in Iraq when the five additional brigades returned home would be about 8,000 more than when the surge began. That is because some of the support, logistics and aviation troops that joined the extra combat brigades will remain, keeping the total at about 140,000.
Even so, Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said Tuesday that he planned to reduce combat tours to 12 months from the current 15 months by the end of summer.
General Casey told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he would not endorse sustaining 15-month tours even if the president ordered a halt to troop reductions after the fifth additional brigade returned home in July.
“The cumulative effects of the last six-plus years at war,” he said, “have left our Army out of balance, consumed by the current fight and unable to do the things we know we need to do to properly sustain our all-volunteer force and restore our flexibility for an uncertain future.”
The debate over future force levels in Iraq has a direct and immediate effect on operations in Afghanistan, which civilian and military officers concede has been “an economy of force” mission because of the overwhelming demand for troops in Iraq. Admiral Fallon’s area of command includes Afghanistan.
Previewing the top-to-bottom review of Afghan strategy he ordered late last year, Admiral Fallon said that the United States, NATO and other allies currently had sufficient combat forces in Afghanistan to carry out the security mission.
“All the talk about how many guns and how many troops are there — we are O.K.,” he said. “Could we do better with a few more folks? Of course. But the real challenge is: Where is the economic viability for this place?”
The goal of NATO commanders in Afghanistan, he said, should be to get more effective results from the combat forces already deployed. He specifically declined to echo recent criticism of NATO combat troops expressed by several administration officials, including Mr. Gates. But Admiral Fallon did acknowledge, “If we could get the right results from not a significant difference in number of people, we would be well on the way.”
As American troop levels are reduced in Iraq, and Army and Marine Corps ground forces are given time to rest and retrain, Admiral Fallon said he would move to order “a substantial investment in training a very nascent Afghan Army and police.”
 
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