The changes would not directly affect the 150,000 troops involved in or supporting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Both divisions based in Germany have seen action in Iraq, where the U.S. military presence increasingly relies on National Guard and Reserve forces.

Some German officials were dismayed at the troop shifts, which would cause multimillion-dollar holes in economies near U.S. bases.

"Base closures would hit us very hard," said spokesman Ole Kruse in the city of Wuerzburg, home of the 1st Infantry Division.

Underscoring the delicate balancing of military needs and diplomatic maneuvering, Bush administration officials offered few details of the realignment plans Monday — and did so only on condition of anonymity. They said any major shifts would not begin until at least 2006 and possibly later.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the three Defense Department officials and one State Department official who briefed dozens of reporters at a Pentagon news conference had to remain anonymous. The officials involved are all closely involved in the planning and negotiating involved. Poland has offered several bases for training, and U.S. officials are talking with Turkish officials about using the Incirlik air base, where allied planes patrolling the former "no-fly zone" over northern Iraq were based. They refused to discuss plans for troop shifts in Asia. U.S. and South Korean officials previously said about one-third of the 37,000 American forces in South Korea will soon leave. The United States and Japan are discussing possible changes for the more than 40,000 troops in Japan, but the officials would not say whether that involved increasing or decreasing the number.

Bush announced the plans in a speech to a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Ohio, a state he wants to win in November. Bush cast the shift as both a way to make the military more flexible and to give troops and their families more stability.

"Our service members will have more time on the home front, and more predictability and fewer moves over a career," Bush said.

However, stepped-up use of training bases overseas could mean more short-term rotations for troops as their families remain in the United States. And some U.S. civilian and contract workers at shuttered European bases would lose their jobs, the Pentagon officials said.

Clark said increased overseas training would put further strain on a military already stretched thin by Iraq and Afghanistan.

"It will increase the burden on many military families, as troops will be separated from their families during more frequent and unaccompanied deployments to Eastern Europe," Clark said.

The Pentagon officials said Bush announced the reorganization plans now so they could fit in with the next round of U.S. military base closures, set to begin next year. Decisions made then will determine where the returning overseas units will be based.

---

Contributing: Deb Riechmann, Tony Czuczka