Pentagon Considers Extended Tours for All Soldiers

Source: ABC News

ABC News Has Learned New Plan Would Accommodate Bush Troop Surge

April 10, 2007 — ABC News has learned that the Pentagon is considering extending the tours of duty for every active duty soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Forget small extensions and trickles of National Guard troops. Under the proposal, deployments for active duty soldiers would be extended from the current 12 months to 15 months. Senior Defense Department officials say the idea has already been presented to Defense Secretary Gates. A decision is expected as early as this week.

"These soldiers have paid the price for this policy for four years. Now they are being given an additional burden to bear, and it will be a cause of concern for the soldiers and even more so for the families," says retired Gen. William Nash.

The stress on the Army has been compounded by the surge of additional forces the president announced in January, a surge Iraq commander David Petreaus wants to extend. Senior officials tell ABC News there is now consensus at the Pentagon and the White House that Petreaus is right. The surge needs to be extended, until at least the end of the year.



Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=3027796&page=1

NT

go in and police iraq by day, but live in kuwait at night, and it's a way to avoid saying that * sent (10k? 20k?) more troops to Iraq --- cuz these ones won't count as part of the surge. kinda like a dirty little secret way to circumvent congress, america, etc.

Not.

Not. Might as well just ask them to move to Iraq and start learning Arabic.

Bush is going to keep this up until he destroys the Army totally.

for his deployment. He was told that when he had his orders cut in January '07. How interesting that the story keeps changing.