Shorter Tours in Future?

The Army is looking to reduce the combat tours in Iraq and Afghanistan back to 12 months from the current 15-month rotation. The longer tours, with little time at home stations, have taken a toll. And the toll is not only on the members and their families’ personal well-being. It also affects the training, readiness and equipment so vital to our soldiers. While our military is heavily engaged in two war zones, they must be prepared to fight other contingencies anywhere in the world. That takes training and equipment.

Prior to the much-noted “surge” of a year ago, we had about 132,000 military members in Iraq. That number jumped to about 160,000 as the surge troops were fully deployed to the theater. And despite the pundits, politicians and the anti-war crowd, the surge has worked extremely well. The surge has been especially successful at the local village and province level. Iraqi volunteer groups have aligned with the U.S. and other coalition forces to bring security and safety to their locales. Another 100,000 or so Iraqi men have trained with the Iraqi Army.

Quite importantly, al-Qaeda in Iraq has been significantly reduced over the past year or so. Some of their diminished impact has been self-inflicted as they robbed, raped and murdered their fellow Iraqis. Essentially, their terror tactics and criminal activities backfired and aroused the anger and resentment of the Iraqi citizenry. And as Gen. David Petraeus used his bulked up forces from the surge to place the troops among these citizens, things started to improve almost immediately. While al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a threat, it has lost a significant segment of its senior leadership and also its insurgent potency.

Over the next five months or so, we should see three Army brigades and two Marine battalions return home. Even so, the post-surge numbers at that time would see about an 8,000-person increase from the pre- surge level of 132,000. It is simply too tough to call how the rest of the year may unfold. The commander of the Coalition Forces must make those decisions predicated on the situation on the ground. I certainly hope the decisions will be conditions-based and not political-based in this heavy political season.

My gut feeling is that there will be more force reductions in Iraq as the year progresses. Things are improving on the ground. The threat has been lessened, and al-Qaeda has been diminished. Security at the local level has improved significantly. Military casualties are down, civilian deaths are down and the economy has seen an uptick with oil flowing at near pre-war levels. The national level government progress remains a concern.

If things continue on an upward slope, we should see further troop reductions over the next year or two. Those reductions are critical to get us back to 12 months (or even shorter) tours as desired by the Army chief of staff. I know our troops and their families look forward to shorter tours and fewer back-to-back rotations to the combat zone. The Army and Marine leadership also look forward to the time and money to refit, replenish and retrain for whatever else may pop up around the globe.