Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, invoking emergency powers, has authorized the Army to grow temporarily by 30,000 troops above its congressionally approved limit of 482,000 to facilitate a restructuring of forces severely strained by operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and counterterrorism missions elsewhere.
The increase, disclosed yesterday in congressional testimony by Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, surprised members of the House Armed Services Committee, many of whom have been pressing for a larger Army.
Rumsfeld has resisted a permanent increase for months, arguing that a number of efficiency measures and restructuring moves could alleviate some of the stress on U.S. forces. But his approval of a temporary rise -- which does not require congressional action and which Schoomaker said would probably be needed for four years -- appeared to acknowledge that some relief is needed.
Schoomaker said the increase would make possible his plans to restructure the Army by expanding the number of brigades and creating more agile, deployable forces. The money, he said, would come from the $87 billion emergency spending bill for Iraq and Afghanistan that passed in November.
An aide to Schoomaker said after the hearing that the troop increase probably would be achieved through incentives to keep soldiers from leaving once their contracts expire and through "stop-loss" orders barring their exit.
Schoomaker also disclosed that he has ordered his staff to plan for how the Army, which is now replacing its forces in Iraq with an entire set of fresh units, would rotate another force of similar size into Iraq in 2005 -- and again in 2006. But other Pentagon officials said any decisions on the size of future rotations are months away.
Larry DiRita, the Pentagon's top spokesman, said Rumsfeld approved the troop increase within the past few days. DiRita said Rumsfeld acted under emergency authority approved by Congress and invoked by President Bush after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, allowing the lifting of personnel caps on the military services.
To discuss the troop level issue further, Rumsfeld has invited some House members to a breakfast meeting today.
The U.S. military, and especially the Army, has come under great stress over the past 21/2 years. This month, the Army began the largest troop rotation since World War II, moving about 250,000 troops in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan.
The rotation will involve eight of the Army's 10 active-duty divisions. In addition, nearly 165,000 Army National Guard and Reserve members find themselves serving tours far longer than what they had expected as part-time soldiers.
Schoomaker and Gen. Michael Hagee, the commandant of the Marine Corps, argued at yesterday's hearing against proposals that would enlarge their forces permanently. They said it is not clear that current demands represent anything more than a temporary spike.
Schoomaker, in particular, insisted that the Army needed to carry out the restructuring plan before determining whether to take the expensive step of requesting more troops. Locking an increase in now, he warned, would result in the kind of bloated, ill-prepared force that plagued the Army in the 1970s.
But both Schoomaker and Hagee hedged their remarks, saying they would change their minds if the current tempo proved not a temporary spike but a plateau.
Republicans and Democrats on the committee refused to give up on the idea of legislating a more permanent jump in troop strength. Some expressed annoyance at what they saw as an attempt by Rumsfeld to skirt Congress.
Rep. Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.), who has introduced legislation to boost the size of the Army, Air Force and Marine Corps by 8 percent temporarily over five years, said the Pentagon seemed to be resisting an obvious need for additional manpower to spare other Bush administration priorities, such as developing a national missile defense system.
"We cannot put the strain on our military and on our American people just because we insist ideologically to keep the budget the way it is," Tauscher said.
Rep. Heather A. Wilson (R-N.M.) said, "This'll be the biggest issue in this year's defense authorization."
In Senate testimony last November, Schoomaker reported that the Army had crept beyond its congressionally authorized limit by 20,000 as a result of "stop-loss" orders. Yesterday he said that number had dropped to about 11,000 soldiers. He told reporters after the hearing that the Army would move "as quickly as we can" to add nearly 20,000 more troops.
Since being recalled from retirement to take command of the Army six months ago, Schoomaker has made restructuring a top priority. His plan envisions keeping 10 active-duty divisions but expanding the number of brigades from 33 to 48, in part by reassigning soldiers from air defense, artillery and other support groups to military police, civil affairs, transportation, medical, engineering and other units with types of skills now in greater demand.
Additionally, he estimated that 10,000 soldiers now performing noncombat tasks can be freed for fighting by transferring their jobs to civilians. And he cited plans to shift some military police, civil affairs and port-opening units from reservist to active-duty ranks.
The great churning of Army forces brought about by current operations, the general said, has created conditions favorable for remaking the service's structure, which has remained largely unchanged since the Cold War.
"We should take advantage of this movement that we currently have to reset and transform during this emergency," Schoomaker said. "And that's what gives me the encouragement that in fact we can do this."
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