Gates Extends Troop Tours

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said "U.S. Army units would bedeployed to Iraq for 15 months instead of 12 months, effectiveimmediately".

Sending National Guardsmen, wounded soldiers and reservists to war, nowextending the soldier's tours of duty, means one thing to me...things aren'tgoing so well for us. Gates sees it differently.

The new policy is aimed at keeping enough forces in the field while givingsoldiers and their families more predictability, Gates said, adding that thepolicy doesn't apply to Marines.

``This new approach will allow the Army to better support the war effort,''Gates said. The change was necessary because, ``We were looking at a growingnumber of troops in the active component who were going to be home less than 12months,'' Gates said.

The policy doesn't necessarily mean that the surge aimed at quelling violencein Iraq will last a year, Gates said. ``Whether it will be kept in place dependsentirely on conditions on the ground,'' he said.

 

Forces Stretched

The shift comes as a 73 percent of Americans said Bush's plan for Iraq hasmade the situation there worse or has had no effect on the country's stability,according to a Bloomberg Los Angeles Times poll. Just 27 percent said setting atimetable for withdrawal helps U.S. troops on the ground, and 15 percent said itwould have no effect.

Gates said the change recognizes that ``our forces are stretched, there's noquestion about that.'' He rejected suggestions that the Army is broken as aresult of the fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Gates and General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff, acknowledged in January that the Pentagon hasn't kept to its own policies on howlong U.S. troops must serve in Iraq.

This war has become quite a quagmireto say the least. While strategies change during a war, the changes which havetaken place so far are off the charts.