Pair of Army units will return to Iraq sooner

WASHINGTON —  The Pentagon said Monday that to sustain the current buildup of troops in Baghdad through the summer, two Army units have been ordered to return to Iraq without the normal yearlong stay at their home bases.

The curtailed home stay for the two units, a combat brigade of about 3,500 soldiers and a division headquarters of 1,000, will mark the second time the Pentagon has been forced to send major Army units to Iraq without a yearlong respite as part of the troop increase ordered in January by President Bush.

Earlier this year, an Army combat brigade was rushed into Iraq after only 10 1/2 months in the U.S., a fact not previously disclosed by the Pentagon. Until this year’s troop increase, no Army brigade had ever had less than a year at home between deployments to Iraq, Pentagon officials say.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army’s chief of staff, has fought to ensure that combat brigades get their full 12 months at home for training and re-equipping. A senior Army official said the fact that the service has been forced to break such “dwell time” guidelines in spite of those efforts is a measure of how the Iraq buildup has stressed the service. Officials have cautioned that other units may face such problems if the buildup is extended into next year.

“Obviously, right now, the Army is stretched,” said the senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss internal evaluations of Army readiness.

Pentagon officials would not comment on why they decided on early deployments rather than extending the tours of units already in Iraq, a common practice earlier in the war. But one of the brigades that is expected to be replaced by the new troops is a Minnesota National Guard brigade that has already had its tour extended four months.

Air Force Gen. Lance L. Smith, head of the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command, told a group of military writers last week that as many as three combat brigades were likely to see their home stays shortened if the buildup was extended into next year. Now that two brigades have confronted shortened dwell time before any decision on the duration of the surge, however, that number could go higher.

The Army also said Monday that the 2nd Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division, the first unit sent to Baghdad as part of the troop increase, would remain in Iraq for a full year, longer than the nine months it originally expected. And the headquarters of the 25th Infantry Division, originally due to return to its Hawaiian base in July after a year in Iraq, is to stay until September.

The decisions announced Monday affect home stays for the 1st Brigade Combat Team of the 10th Mountain Division, based at Ft. Drum, N.Y., which will be home for 10 1/2 months before returning to Iraq in June, and the headquarters of the 4th Infantry Division, based at Ft. Hood, Texas, which will be returning to Iraq in August after less than 10 months at home.

This year, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates changed Pentagon policy to make it easier for the military to call up National Guard brigades for second tours of duty in Iraq, a move widely viewed as an effort to take pressure off active-duty units facing short home stays.

Guard units were not called up as part of the latest troop assignments, but Pentagon officials said Guard brigades could be tapped for Iraq duty in the fall to keep the buildup going through the end of the year.

“Stay tuned,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said when asked whether Guard brigades would be headed back to Iraq soon.

Last month, the Pentagon called up 800 California National Guard soldiers to support the buildup, although they have yet to receive any formal orders to deploy to Iraq.

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peter.spiegel@latimes.com