Rotation to Cut U.S. Presence
Reservists to Assume Greater Share of Duties in Iraq
By Liz Spayd and Thomas E. Ricks
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, January 18, 2004; Page A17
CAMP AL-SAYLIYAH, Qatar -- A massive rotation of troops in and out of Iraq, due to be completed in five months, will leave the U.S. military with a far smaller presence there, fewer troops with prior experience in the Middle East and a far greater proportion of reservists in the region.
The U.S. Central Command set in motion this month what will be one of the largest troop and equipment movements in American history. If all goes according to plan, 130,000 troops will fly or drive out of Iraq and 105,000 replacements will move in -- all at a time when fighting remains volatile and intense. The military is also beginning to rotate troops in Afghanistan and Kuwait.
The replacement force will have many more units drawn from the National Guard and Army Reserve. Currently, about 28,000 troops in Iraq are from those groups. After the rotation is concluded in late May, the proportion of reservists will more than double, with 66,000 active-duty troops and 39,000 from the Guard and Reserve.
"I don't think we've had that amount of forces moving in that time frame that I'm aware of, ever," even during World War II, a senior official at Central Command's regional headquarters here said.
The heavier reliance on reservists is a concern in part because those troops had more morale problems than their active-duty counterparts. A survey of 500 soldiers serving in Iraq conducted last month by Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University sociologist specializing in military issues, found that the mood of troops from the Guard and Reserve was "markedly lower." In a preliminary report to the Army, Moskos noted, "The complaint that reservists were 'second-class citizens' in OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) was frequently heard."
The shift poses considerable risk for a military battling an unpredictable enemy that has proved adept at taking advantage of U.S. vulnerabilities. "Anytime you have a large number of forces moving, there's obviously an opportunity for somebody who wants to do something bad," the official said.
Conscious of that risk, commanders have ordered Predator unmanned reconnaissance aircraft to monitor crucial convoy routes. The troop movements are being coordinated with military intelligence on the insurgents' tactics. "We don't do anything operationally without links" to intelligence, the official said.
Once the new troops are in place, a major issue for commanders will be ensuring that know-how is passed from one soldier to the next. Plans call for each incoming unit to arrive about two weeks before the departure of the one it is replacing, allowing the old units and new ones to live and operate side by side.
"Obviously, 15 days doesn't compensate for 365 days," the official said. "But I think our military forces are trained and adapt well."
The new force will be lighter, operating fewer tanks and other heavy vehicles. U.S. commanders have vowed to make the military more mobile and agile in Iraq, and so most of the tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles -- two mainstays of the combat Army -- are being withdrawn. In their place, troops will operate Humvees, enabling them to patrol the streets of Baghdad and other cities with less disruption, but still respond quickly to events.
Many of the new Humvees are armored versions that provide more protection against the street-side bombs that have killed or wounded hundreds of U.S. soldiers in recent months. Of the 9,800 Humvees in Iraq, about 1,800 are armored, the official said. The new Humvees, whose short supply has become an issue in Congress, are being shipped in as fast as they are made, and the Army plans to have 3,000 in Iraq two years from now, he said.
The entire movement of forces has been modeled extensively on computers, occupying the attention of top military leaders for weeks. One of their major worries is that winter weather in the United States and the North Atlantic could disrupt the movement of ships and aircraft, causing delays that ripple through the highly synchronized process. The heart of the plan is achieving efficiency by having each aircraft and truck fully loaded both going into and leaving Iraq. If shipments are delayed by weather, that plan could go awry.
The new force also will have a significant number of Marines, a major change from the current all-Army ground force in Iraq and one that presents additional logistical challenges. About 25,000 Marines are slated to take over the tumultuous western half of Iraq's Sunni Muslim heartland from the Army's 82nd Airborne Division. |
