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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Karen Lawrence who wrote (60004)	12/5/2002 12:15:56 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Newspaper: Pentagon to call thousands of reservists "If you call them up before Christmas and don't give them something meaningful to do, that's dumb." (consistent, though) miami.com NEW YORK - The Pentagon plans to mobilize thousands of National Guard and Reserve troops in the next several days to fill military jobs that would be key in the event of a U.S. war with Iraq, The New York Times reported on Thursday, citing Defense Department officials. As many as 10,000 reservists, mainly military police units, will be activated for security duty in the United States and abroad in what likely will be the first in a wave of mobilizations, unnamed officials told the Times. Although no final decisions have been made, the Pentagon -- if President Bush orders an attack on Iraq -- has plans to activate roughly the same number of reservists as were used during the Gulf War of 1991, when about 265,000 reservists were summoned to active duty, the Times said in its online edition. So far, 50,755 reservists have been mobilized for the defense of the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and for the war in Afghanistan, the Times said. "Activating reserves is significant because it will affect every community in America, and it sends a signal that the president is serious," a senior military official told the Times. The scale and timing of the call-up depends largely on Iraq's response to the U.N. resolution calling for Baghdad to give up any chemical, biological or nuclear arms, and the pace of ongoing U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq, the newspaper said. Pentagon officials said they are wary of calling up reservists too soon, particularly during the holiday season, and one defense official said that if the call-up of 10,000 reservists is not announced in the next few days, it likely would be postponed until after Jan. 1, the paper said. "You don't want to jerk the reservists around," a senior military official told the Times. "If you call them up before Christmas and don't give them something meaningful to do, that's dumb."