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posted January 31, 2006 at 11:00 a.m.

Stop-loss used to retain 50,000 US troops

Also, Iraqi officials say total number of foreign troops in Iraq will fall below 100,000 by end of year.

By Tom Regan | csmonitor.com

"Stop-loss," a policy used by the Army to keep US soldiers and reservists in the military beyond the date when their service was supposed to end, has been used on more than 50,000 members of the armed forces since the war in Iraq began. Currently stop-loss is being used to extend the duty of 12,500 troops. Reuters reports that the measure applies to units about to deploy to Afghanistan or Iraq.

Under the policy, soldiers who normally would leave when their commitments expire must remain in the Army, starting 90 days before their unit is scheduled to depart, through the end of their deployment and up to another 90 days after returning to their home base. With yearlong tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, some soldiers can be forced to stay in the Army an extra 18 months.

The military argues that it is a necessary step to preserve the cohesive nature of a unit, especially one ready to fight, and courts have backed the military so far in any challenges against the policy. But critics say it is just another illustration of how stretched out the US Army and reserves have become, and that could undercut increased effort to attract new recruits.

"As the war in Iraq drags on, the Army is accumulating a collection of problems that cumulatively could call into question the viability of an all-volunteer force," said defense analyst Loren Thompson of the Lexington Institute think tank. "When a service has to repeatedly resort to compelling the retention of people who want to leave, you're edging away from the whole notion of volunteerism."

A recent Pentagon report written for the Department of Defense by Andrew Krepinevich, a former military officer, said stop-loss was a "short-term fix" enabling the Army to meet deployment requirements, but that such policies "risk breaking the force as recruitment and retention problems mount."


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On Sunday the Associated Press reported that President Bush will use his new budget to call for a reduction in the size of the Army Reserve to its lowest level in three decades. The proposed cut, if accepted by Congress, would form part of a broader plan to "achieve a new balance of troop strength and combat power among the active Army, the National Guard and reserves to fight the global war on terrorism and to defend the homeland."

Under the plan, the authorized troop strength of the Army Reserve would drop from 205,000 – the current number of slots it is allowed – to 188,000, the actual number of soldiers it had at the end of 2005. Because of recruiting and other problems, the Army Reserve has been unable to fill its ranks to its authorized level.
Army leaders have said they are taking a similar approach to shrinking the National Guard. They are proposing to cut that force from its authorized level of 350,000 soldiers to 333,000, the actual number now on the rolls.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Army has begun to "dramatically increase" the number of soldiers it promotes. The increase in promotion numbers, caused primarily by the Army's problems in retaining officers, is raising concern among some military experts that the policy will dilute the quality of the officer corps.

In 2005, the Army appointed 97 percent of all eligible captains to the rank of major – normally the rate is between 70 and 80 percent. The step between captain and major is often used to winnow lower-performing soldiers out of the military. Meanwhile the number of promotions from major to lieutenant colonel rose from an average of 65 to 75 percent in the past to 86 percent in 2005.

The Army hopes to increase the number of active-duty combat brigades to 42 from 33 over the next several years by cutting headquarters staff and transferring soldiers from support jobs into front-line combat positions.
Yet the spike in promotions is partly due to the large number of Army officers choosing to leave the service. Army officers are getting out of the military at the highest rate since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, shrinking the pool of officers eligible for promotion.

A new University of Maryland survey shows that 47 percent of Iraqis favor attacks on US troops in Iraq, Knight Ridder reports. The findings differ among religious factions in Iraq – 88 percent of Sunnis, 41 percent of Shiites, and 16 percent of Kurds were in favor of the attacks. Nearly 80 percent of Iraqis believe that the US will keep permanent bases in Iraq even if the Iraqi government asks all foreign troops to leave.

"Iraqis are demanding a timetable for US withdrawal, and most believe that the US has no plans to leave even if the new government asks them to," said Steven Kull, the director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland, which conducted the poll. "This appears to be leading some to even support attacks on US-led troops, even though many feel they also continue to need the presence of US troops awhile longer."
"If you put it all together, it's clear there is a center of gravity, not towards immediate withdrawal, but for the US to be there in a way that affirms their intent to withdraw eventually," he said. "There is real consensus on that point."

The New York Times reports Tuesday that Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser, has told the paper that the number of foreign troops in the country, including US troops, will fall below 100,000 before the end of 2006. He also said the overwhelming majority of foreign troops will be gone by 2007.