WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is preparing to alert eight National Guard units that they should be ready to go to Iraq or Afghanistan beginning late next summer officials said Wednesday.
The U.S. military is reaching out to more Guard units in an effort to maintain needed troop levels, ease some of the strain on the active duty Army and provide security for ports, convoys and other installations.
According to defense officials, seven of the units would deploy to Iraq and one to Afghanistan.
Two of the units will be full combat brigades heading to Iraq, between next summer and into 2009, to serve as part of the rotation with active duty troops. There are currently 20 combat brigades in Iraq, but under plans mapped out by President Bush and his top commanders, that number will gradually drop to 15 next year as the U.S. reduces its troop presence there.
Those two Guard brigades would include about 3,500 soldiers each — generally the size of a combat brigade. But the other five going to Iraq will be much smaller brigades that are tailored for specialized support operations, mostly security and detainee operations. Their sizes vary, but some would be about 1,000 troops.
The announcement sometime this week will give the Guard units advanced notice of the planned deployment schedule so that they can begin training and preparing. Also, because it looks far into the future, there is always the possibility that plans could change, based on conditions in Iraq.
There are now 171,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, largely because several units are overlapping as some move in and others move out of the country. Once those transitions are complete and the drawdown begins, the level of troops in Iraq could drop to as low as 135,000.
Some of the smaller Guard units would be stationed in Kuwait, where they would provide security for the port there, as well as convoys that move in and out of Iraq.
All together, the Guard announcement would involve about 20,000 soldiers.
Specific brigades were not identified, but they will include units from North Carolina, Oklahoma, Illinois and Hawaii, according to officials.
As of this summer, more than 185,000 Guard members had served in either Iraq or Afghanistan over the past six years and more than 28,000 of them had been deployed more than once.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
