Decision on Army expansion delayed

WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the Army's senior leadership have agreed to delay at least until 2006 any decision on whether to permanently expand the Army, senior Pentagon and Army officials said Tuesday.

The decision could set up a confrontation with influential members of Congress who have been pressing Rumsfeld to agree to an increase in the size of the Army, which has been under strain because of the continuing deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Instead, Rumsfeld has put off any move within the Pentagon to make permanent the extra 30,000 soldiers approved by Congress last year as a stopgap measure.

A month ago, Army officials were privately discussing the possibility of permanent troop increases as they prepared to present President Bush's new spending requests to Congress in hearings that begin on Wednesday.

Although the politically volatile and costly decision to expand the Army permanently was postponed, Army officials said Tuesday they would require $48 billion over the next six years to reshape combat brigades to make them easier to deploy quickly, and more lethal.

The money will be used to redesign the current 33 active-duty combat brigades with the goal of making each a more agile and potent combat force that stands ready for deployment with its own service and support troops.

In addition, the Army plans to create 10 additional brigades and perhaps even five more later, increasing pressure for a permanent increase in the number of soldiers in the Army.

That plan is the centerpiece of the Army's effort to meet the large and lengthy deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan and to cope with future threats without requiring back-to-back deployments by active-duty soldiers and the automatic mobilization of the Reserve and National Guard now required in the support mission.

But while some of the brigades could be staffed with soldiers now filling noncombat roles or shifted from other responsibilities within the service, how many is not clear.

Rumsfeld's wait-and-see approach appears guided in part by the possibility that sometime next year the Army may be able to begin drawing down its forces in Iraq.

The goal of the Army restructuring is to gain enough combat-ready brigades so that active-duty soldiers can count on two years at home bases for every year deployed overseas, while reservists can be guaranteed five years at home between yearlong mobilizations.