Reserve and Guard Ordered to Alert More Troops for Iraq
By ERIC SCHMITT and THOM SHANKER

Published: November 20, 2003


ASHINGTON, Nov. 19 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld ordered an
additional 15,000 Reserve and National Guard troops on Wednesday to
prepare for the possibility of yearlong duty in Iraq or Kuwait,
rounding out a plan to rotate American forces in the region by next
spring.

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Combined with alert warnings and deployment orders approved two weeks
ago, Mr. Rumsfeld's decision brings to 58,000 the total number of
Reserve and National Guard troops who have been alerted for possible
service in the Persian Gulf region early next year.

The latest orders, which had been expected, are part of the Pentagon's
overall plan to reduce the American force levels in Iraq to 105,000 by
next May from about 130,000 now.

"We're notifying the next wave of reservists who were included in the
original rotation announcement," said Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon's
chief spokesman. He said that the notification began Wednesday and
that the list of units would not be made public until troops received
official word.

Reserve and National Guard troops will play an increasingly important
role in the next rotation. By spring, reservists will represent about
37 percent of the total force in Iraq, or 39,000 troops, compared with
about 22 percent now, or 28,000 troops. The big difference is that the
reservists in Iraq now are support personnel. In the next rotation,
there will be 15,000 troops from three National Guard combat brigades.

The large-scale mobilization of reservists, and the strains it places
on their families and employers, has been a difficult issue for the
Pentagon, and military officials had sought to limit this next round
of call-ups.

But because so many of the military's logistical units are in the
Reserve or National Guard, the Pentagon has had little choice but to
tap more reservists, focusing on units and individuals that had not
yet been mobilized since Sept. 11, 2001.

The 15,000 whose units are being alerted are Army Reserve and National
Guard troops. To ease the Army's burden, the Pentagon in its call-up
two weeks ago alerted reservists from other services, like Navy cargo
handlers and Air Force truck drivers, to fill jobs usually assigned to
Army troops.

The large deployment of Guard and Reserve forces to Iraq, and whether
the lengthy mobilization will hurt retention, was a contentious theme
at a hearing Wednesday of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"Their morale is good, they're ready to fight," Senator John McCain,
Republican of Arizona, said of the Guard and Reserve forces. But he
expressed concerns that the Iraq deployment might persuade some not to
rejoin at the end of their current commitments, saying, "They're not
ready to stay in at this kind of deployment schedule — might as well
be in the regular Army."

Les Brownlee, the acting Army secretary, told the senators that any
problems in retaining troops for the Guard and Reserve had not yet
shown up in statistics for the 2003 fiscal year. But he noted that it
might be too early to measure any effect.

"I believe that we will not be able to get a good answer to that
question until some three to six months after these units return," he
said.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the new Army chief of staff, was pressed by
the senators on whether the service needed more troops, and he said
none of the commanders in Iraq said they were short of fighters.

General Schoomaker (pronounced SKOO-maker) surprised the senators by
noting that the Army currently was even larger than the level
authorized by Congress, owing to orders that prevent scheduled
retirements and other moves during time of war or national emergency.

"The United States Army today has about 20,000 more people in it than
we're authorized, and that is a result of `stop-loss, stop-move' that
we've done on the active force," General Schoomaker said.

Senators also expressed deep concerns over shortages in the latest
models of bulletproof vests and in armored Humvees, and also raised
questions about the timetable for upgrading helicopters in Iraq with
the newest equipment for warding off surface-to-air missiles.

"These reports of a shortage of body armor, these reports of
ill-equipped ground vehicles and air vehicles in terms of the armor,
are just totally unacceptable," said Senator John W. Warner,
Republican of Virginia, the committee's chairman.

The panel was told that all troops in Iraq, and not just those in
frontline combat roles, will be issued the Army's newest Interceptor
Body Armor by December. But it could be 2005 before enough armored
Humvees are produced to fill the requirement in Iraq, so the Army is
exploring alternatives, including strapping armor to "soft skinned"
Humvees and using vehicle fleets assigned to other commands.

"We have moved all of the `up-armored' Humvees from everywhere else in
the world into this place," General Schoomaker said. "It's not just
what we're producing, it's what we're moving from everywhere that
we've got."

The senators were told that Chinook helicopters in Iraq would be
upgraded if they did not currently carry the Army's most advanced
antimissile systems, a process that takes about three weeks for each
helicopter.














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