Troops may be staying longer than 12 months in Iraq and elsewhere

<snip>Joining us this morning from Washington, D.C. is retired Army Lieutenant Dan Christman.

Good morning. Nice to see -- Lieutenant General, forgive me, Dan Christman.

LT. GEN. DAN CHRISTMAN, U.S. ARMY (RET.): No problem, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: I don't want to shorten that important title there. Thanks for joining us this morning.

CHRISTMAN: Thank you, Soledad.

O'BRIEN: Let's first talk about predictability. How critical do you think predictability in the field for the soldiers who are there about when they will be returning home is?

CHRISTMAN: It's huge. I think it's far more important than the number of weeks or months that a deployment pattern consists of. I spent in my first five years in the military, Soledad, two hardship tours overseas -- one 13 months, one 12 months. In each case, I could predict, I knew with certainty the date, even the hour that I was going to return. My wife, Susan (ph), for example, could plan on her schedule. She could teach school for a year. That's the most important thing it seems to me in terms of morale is the rotation pattern to set up, that will help significantly in alleviating some of the morale concerns that we see.

O'BRIEN: The length of the deployment, you think, is not as important as just knowing when your out date is?

CHRISTMAN: Absolutely. I think the key is that certainty of a return, to be able to pick a date and to plan your life and the life of one spouse around that. I think the other thing, too, Soledad, here is that the Pentagon has got to balance, and they are I think, in their considerations here. What's happening in country? The important factor here is some continuity, so the troops in country can work with, interact, engage shopkeepers, imams, clerics, those take time to develop, and it cannot be a short tour -- three to four months. It needs to be longer, so that those engagements are productive.

O'BRIEN: So, you're saying because a lot of the rebuilding of Iraq will rely on relationships, personal relationships, between some level of the military and the mullahs and the clerics and the shopkeepers that you talk about, consistency is critical.

CHRISTMAN: No, absolutely. And I think that cannot be done in three to five months. My sensing is that the rotation here that we're talking about is probably going to be nine to 12 months, perhaps even longer. That's what's necessary, it seems to me, in this kind of international engagement -- Iraq and elsewhere.

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