Deployment Math Tests the Military

As prospects fade for U.S. force reductions in Iraq, Army and Marine commanders have been stepping up their warnings that the pace of troop deployments is increasingly straining the military and threatening to cause long-term damage.

According to Pentagon officials, senior officers in the Army and Marine Corps in recent weeks have begun warning that without a reduction in Iraq, the present schedule of combat tours would be difficult to sustain without an increase in the number of forces.

Army officials had been counting on a gradual drawdown in Iraq starting later this year and accelerating over the following 12 months.

But the rising violence in Baghdad forced the Pentagon to shelve those plans at the end of July, and Army Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East, acknowledged publicly Tuesday that force levels would remain around the current 145,000 through spring.

One senior Pentagon official involved in long-term planning said the concerns had reached such a level that top Army leaders broached the issue of changing deployment rules to allow for more frequent call-ups of National Guard and Reserve units to relieve pressure on the active duty Army.

Because the Army relied heavily on the Guard and Reserve early in the war, many units have hit legal deployment limits, which allow for two years overseas out of every five. But without a change in those rules to allow more frequent Guard deployments, the Army would be forced to consider a push for an expansion of its active duty force, which stands at 504,000, the official said.

“You can start seeing the [effect of deployments] on the leadership of the active force,” the official said, referring to limits on the use of Guard and Reserve troops. “That’s the stress that we’re having right now on this force.”

Although most of the concerns regarding strains on the Marines and Army have been aired privately in the Pentagon, Abizaid told a group of military reporters this week that it would be difficult to find additional troops to send to Iraq to deal with insurgent violence in western Anbar province.

The Marine Corps has expressed less alarm about the high rate of deployments. Still, Defense officials said that in internal meetings, Gen. Michael W. Hagee, the Corps’ commandant, had begun discussing his need to focus on force levels out of concern that “significant personnel issues” could develop.

“The margins are very thin,” said one Defense official who has discussed the issue with senior Marine officers. “We haven’t seen it occur yet; it’s just something that causes the commandant and the senior leadership of the Marine Corps to be very, very wary and to constantly monitor the manpower situation to ensure we’re not using up the force in ways that we can’t do other missions, if required.”

Hagee has said publicly that he believes the Marine Corps should remain at 181,000 troops; Pentagon planning documents call for it to shrink to 175,000.

“You have personnel who are training right now primarily to do the mission in Iraq, but are not receiving their training for other mission areas or other contingencies,” the official said. “If those contingencies erupt, they won’t be ready, or as ready.”

Under Army models, two active duty brigades are supposed to be at their home bases for equipment repairs or retraining for every brigade deployed to a war zone. However, over the course of the Iraq war, that ratio has fallen to one brigade stateside for every one overseas -- meaning most combat units are returning to Iraq after barely a year at home. An Army brigade is made up of about 3,500 soldiers.

The Marines also face a 1-to-1 deployment ratio, officials said. There are 23,000 Marines in Iraq, along with about 120,000 Army soldiers. The remaining 2,000 are from the Air Force and Navy.

Some former senior military officials said that without a substantial draw-down, the military will face personnel issues. The Army, for instance, has been maintaining its overall force levels in part because of higher-than-expected reenlistment numbers. Army officials say those rates show soldiers have been pleased with their experience and are eager to continue to serve.

But military experts say if the operational pace continues, the reenlistments are likely to fall sharply.

“My gut keeps telling me we have 18 to 36 months until we see dramatic shifts in recruiting, retention and discipline of the ground forces,” says retired Army Maj. Gen. William L. Nash, a former commander in Bosnia and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I just think that the stress over time on the same people is building and building. I don’t know when the valve on the pressure cooker goes off.”

Jack L. Tilley, who from 2000 to 2004 served as sergeant major of the Army -- the service’s top enlisted officer -- said family members had begun pressuring soldiers not to reenlist, arguing they had been away from home too long and worrying that chances of serious injury or death increased with each return to Iraq.

“It’s like anything else,” Tilley said. “You play a game -- first time you win, the second time you win. Well, you know chances are getting slimmer and slimmer about getting hurt, and there is a lot of concern about that.”

As force levels remain high, the number of soldiers and Marines sent on multiple combat missions has also continued to climb. About 30% of the nearly 400,000 active-duty Army soldiers and 36% of the 143,000 active-duty Marines who have been deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan have seen multiple tours.

In addition, about 280,000 Army and Marine Corps reservists have done one or more deployments to Iraq or Afghanistan.

Under Army force models developed under Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the Guard and Reserve were supposed to contribute four to five brigades to the pool of soldiers available for overseas service. But because of their heavy use early in the war, many have already hit their two-year limit, and only one Guard unit is deployed to Iraq.

The issue of revising the two-year limit is fraught with political risk. The Guard has strong support among key members of Congress, and a proposal last year to revise the regulations was dropped after concerns were raised by lawmakers.

But some Army officials have argued in recent weeks that unless the rule is revised, it will be difficult to sustain the current pace of deployment for the active force.

“If we’re going to have an active duty force that’s only going to be so big, you have to have access to the Reserve,” the senior official said. “If you want to stay in this and never have to accelerate [Guard deployment], you’d better grow the [active] force.”

Although discussions about changing the Guard rules have been underway for weeks, the official said it remained unclear when a decision would be made. Given the political sensitivity, however, it remains unlikely the Pentagon would propose any shift before the November election.

The military has been trying to ease the pressure on the Army and Marine Corps by using more Navy and Air Force service members in Iraq, but those efforts have not significantly eased the burden.

If the American force in Iraq cannot be shrunk, lawmakers will face some difficult decisions, military experts said.

“It is just a tough situation,” Tilley said. “The question our Congress has to ask itself is at what point do we activate our country a little bit more. Nobody wants to talk about a draft. But how long are you going to go until enough is enough? Those are tough questions.”

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julian.barnes@latimes.com

peter.spiegel@latimes.com