Washington, Sept 09: Short of troops in Iraq, the US Army has extended the tours of thousands of national guard and army reserve forces in the war-torn country to one year. Defence officials have made authority since the September 11, 2001 terror attacks to activate guard and reserve troops for two years. However, most to date have been called up for only a year of total service, which has included weeks or months of training in the US before being sent to Iraq as well as debriefings once they returned home.
The new order, requiring 12-month tours on the ground in Iraq and surrounding countries, means that many guard and army reserve troops could have their original year-long mobilisations extended for anywhere from one to six months.

The order comes after months of concern inside and outside the army that an over-reliance on guard and reserve forces by the bush administration in the war on terrorism could adversely affect retention and recruiting. Some officials have expressed concern that this could break the guard and reserve system, which augments the active duty force with critical engineering, military police, civil affairs and psychological operations specialists, 'Washington Post' said.

The new deployment policy, which is still being disseminated to guard and army reserve units is already prompting concerns by troops and their advocates, who say uncertainty about the length of deployments can have a highly negative impact on morale.

The army issued the new policy late Friday night but made no formal announcement of the change.

There are 122,000 army personnel in Iraq, including 3,000 National Guard soldiers and 5,000 reservists.
Bureau Report