WASHINGTON — In a stark contrast to years of lean recruiting, Army officials on Tuesday said they have exceeded end-strength goals, and resisted a senator’s offer to increase their ranks by 30,000 more.
Such a move would cost another $1 billion a year, an expense Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey said he’s reluctant to embrace right now.
Congress had set an end strength goal of 547,000 active-duty soldiers by 2011, as part of efforts to increase capabilities and decrease the strain of deployments on units.
But Casey said the service has already reached 549,000, thanks to successful recruiting and retention efforts.
And even that may not be enough to fully relieve the strain of deployments over the next 18 months, Casey told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
The Army has nearly doubled its troop numbers in Afghanistan in recent months, and large drawdowns of forces from Iraq won’t begin until 2010.
That prompted Sen. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., to propose a temporary end strength increase of 30,000 more soldiers, in order to allow more dwell time immediately for units between deployments.
Casey said the service isn’t interested, at least for now.
"It certainly would be easier to get through the next 12 to 18 months if we had even more," Casey said. "But for now we’ve decided not to go through with that."
Army officials said the service currently has about 20,000 combat wounded veterans unable to redeploy, a record number in the ranks.
Lieberman’s 30,000 proposal was based on that figure, and echoed by other members of the Senate committee.
Casey said that neither he nor Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has ruled out a temporary end strength increase, especially if plans to pull troops from Iraq are delayed or changed.
But the Army is already $2 billion behind in its personnel funds because of the higher-than-expected end strength, money service officials hope to recoup in the war supplemental currently before Congress.
Another 30,000 troops would cost another $1 billion in pay, benefits and support, Casey said.
Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell echoed those cost concerns.
"There are extraordinary costs associated with growing our force, and I think [Gates] is not convinced that that is the answer to some of the stress and strain that the force is feeling right now," he said.
Both Casey and Army Secretary Pete Geren said they do not anticipate the temporary increase in deployments to negatively affect their long-term plans for dwell-time changes, provided the two-year plans for Iraq and Afghanistan don’t change drastically.
Currently, troops average about 17 months home for every year deployed. Army officials hope to increase that to two years between deployments by 2011.
Stars and Stripes reporter Jeff Schogol contributed to this story.
