Guard facing troop shortage for Iraq in 2006
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By Richard Whittle Dallas Morning News - Published: February 24, 2005
WASHINGTON — The Army National Guard will run short of troops for Iraq in 2006 unless the situation there improves or the 24-month limit on callups is changed, its top general said Wednesday.
Lt. Gen. Roger Schultz said in an interview that planners are assuming in 2006 the Army will need fewer than the 52,000 Army Guard members in Iraq now — roughly a third of the 155,000 U.S. troops battling insurgents.
But if the demand remains the same, the Army Guard would be unable to meet it "without recalling previously mobilized soldiers" covered by the 24-month callup cap, Schultz said.
Other Army leaders have suggested relaxing the callup cap, too. But Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said earlier this month there were "no plans" to take that politically touchy step.
Schultz's remarks are the latest from top military officials concerned over the strains of overseas missions on the Army. In December, the chief of the Army Reserve, Lt. Gen. James R. "Ron" Helmly, warned that Army Reserve recruiting is in a "precipitous decline."
The Army National Guard is adding 1,400 recruiters to try to overcome the growing shortage of new enlistees Schultz said, adding that he and other Guard leaders remained "cautiously optimistic" that they will meet their recruiting goal of 69,400 new members by Sept. 30.
The Army Guard's mandated "end-strength" is 350,000. As of Wednesday, however, there were only 333,632 enrolled.
Schultz said some shortfall during the year is normal. The Guard builds its strength toward the end of the fiscal year to meet its legally required size, he explained.
But the Army Guard missed its recruiting goal by 12 percent in the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30, and for the first four months of fiscal 2005 is 24 percent behind. That leaves it 4,014 soldiers short of its 16,836 goal for Jan. 31.
Schultz said recruiting in the first quarter of a fiscal year typically is "a little bit sluggish in comparison with the others."
Despite new re-enlistment bonuses of $15,000 for Guard soldiers, the Guard also fell 12 percent short of its goal for getting members finishing their first term of enlistment to sign up for another tour. But Schultz said retention is not his biggest problem.
Re-enlistments by members who already have served more than one tour has been 101 percent of the goal so far this year, he said.
"Everybody's not walking out of the Guard when they come off active duty," the general said. "Retention is not the overriding issue as much as recruiting."
But Schultz acknowledged that because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and mobilizations for homeland security duties, "the all-volunteer concept is being tested today."
Helmly, head of the Army Reserve, said in a Dec. 20 memo to the Army chief of staff leaked to the Baltimore Sun that his arm of the service was in danger of becoming a "broken force" under the current operations tempo.
The Bush administration is training large numbers of Iraqi forces in the expectation that they will take over from U.S. troops in the fight against insurgents, allowing American forces to withdraw.
But how soon such withdrawals might be possible is uncertain, and U.S. military leaders have cautioned that the insurgents are likely to keep trying to undermine the democratic government Iraq is trying to form after elections Jan. 30.
Consequently, many experts predict that significant numbers of U.S. troops could be needed in Iraq well beyond this year.
"No doubt, if we kept up this pace for extended periods, our force would come apart," Shultz said of the Army National Guard. But he added: "We're not broken. Have we been tested? Yes. Have we been stressed? Yes. Are we at the point of collapse? No."
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