Reply #12: Army tour of duty in Iraq 'must be longer' [View All]

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http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1066565672385

The US army will not be able to sustain current force levels in Iraq beyond next spring unless it extends the tour of duty of its active units to more than the current year, the Congressional Budget Office said yesterday.

The Pentagon's decision this summer to extend the tour of duty of US troops in Iraq to a full year had already provoked strong criticism.

Douglas HoltzEakin, director of the CBO, told the US House of Representatives armed services committee yesterday that "the active army would be unable to sustain an occupation force of the present size beyond March 2004 if it chose not to keep individual units deployed to Iraq for longer than one year without relief".

The CBO said the army did not have enough active component forces "to simultaneously maintain the occupation at its current size, limit deployments to one year, and sustain all of its other commitments" - as the Pentagon had planned.

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