Current troop level may run through '09

WASHINGTON — It's no secret that the Pentagon is eyeing a possible cut in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year.

Less well known is that Army planners are preparing for quite a different scenario: that they will have to sustain, through multiple rotations, the current number of troops for another four years.

"We are now into '07-'09 in our planning," Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, said in an Associated Press interview Saturday. By that he meant his planners are sketching out which combat and support units can be called upon to sustain the current force levels through 2009.

Since decisions about future troop levels are not his to make, Schoomaker is planning for the "worst case" in terms of what will be required in the years ahead. He said the number could be adjusted lower, if called for, by slowing the force rotation or by shortening tours for soldiers.

Schoomaker said commanders in Iraq and others who are in the chain of command will decide how many troops will be needed next year and beyond. His responsibility is to provide them, trained and equipped.

About 138,000 U.S. troops, including about 25,000 Marines, are now in Iraq.

Schoomaker's comments come amid indications from Bush administration officials and commanders in Iraq that the size of the U.S. force may be scaled back next year if certain conditions are achieved.

Among those conditions: an Iraqi constitution must be drafted in coming days; it must be approved in a national referendum; and elections must be held for a new government under that charter.

Schoomaker, who spoke aboard an Army jet on the trip back to Washington from Kansas City, Mo., made no predictions about the pace of political progress in Iraq. But he said he was confident the Army could provide the current number of forces to fight the insurgency for many more years. The 2007-09 rotation he is planning would go beyond President Bush's term in office, which ends in January 2009.

Schoomaker was in Kansas City for a dinner Friday hosted by the Military Order of the World Wars, a veterans organization.

"We're staying 18 months to two years ahead of ourselves" in planning which active-duty and National Guard and Reserve units will be provided to meet the commanders' needs, Schoomaker said in the interview.

The main active-duty combat units that are scheduled to go to Iraq in the coming year are the 101st Airborne Division, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., and the 4th Infantry Division from Fort Hood, Texas. Both did one-year tours earlier in the war.

The Army has changed the way it arranges troop rotations.