Pentagon set to deploy 30,000 more Reservists

Pentagon set to deploy 30,000 GIs
Reservists would join Guard brigades replacing troops currently in Iraq
Newsday
Wednesday, October 22, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/10/22/MNGHN2GJ4K1.DTL


Washington -- After failing to attract large numbers of foreign peacekeepers to Iraq, the Pentagon is drawing up plans to rotate in as many as 30,000 more reservists early next year, despite growing worries in Congress about strains on the force, defense officials said Tuesday.

These troops would join three, 5,000-member Army National Guard brigades already in line to go to Iraq as part of an expected yearlong rotation to replace U.S. troops now there. U.S. Marines also may be sent back into Iraq by February to ease the burden on overstretched Army forces that normally shoulder U.S. peacekeeping duties.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refused to discuss Tuesday how many more reservists might be needed next year, saying no final decisions had been made, but other officials described the planning for a reserves call-up on condition of anonymity.

There is growing unease on Capitol Hill about the stresses put on reserve forces by the war on terrorism, and questions over whether the Bush administration adequately foresaw just how many U.S. troops would be needed in Iraq, and for how long.

MORE.........

What more can one say? These poor men and women are not trained and likely have no idea of the quagmire they are being sentenced to. And they wonder why no one plans to re-enlist.

Bush has done more to hurt our military than the Repukes ever imagined Clinton to have done. Recruitment will be way down in the years to come.

so the ones nearing the end of their contract can't leave.