Army Pledges No Cutbacks in National Guard

Recruiting Shortfalls Led To Proposed Reductions

Facing pressure from both parties in Congress and state National Guard leaders, the Army yesterday committed to keeping the National Guard's authorized manpower at 350,000 and promised to fund it up to that level.

"If they recruit 350,000, the funding's there. Their authorization remains 350,000," Gen. Peter Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, said at a Pentagon news conference yesterday.

Because of recruiting shortfalls, the Guard has about 333,000 soldiers on the rolls, but Guard leaders say they are confident of reaching the goal of 350,000 this year. "We are on a glide path to get to 350,000," said Lt. Gen. Clyde Vaughn, director of the Army National Guard, who appeared at the briefing with Schoomaker.

The Army had proposed cutting the budgeted Guard strength by about 17,000 positions, in part by replacing six combat brigades that each have 3,500 to 4,000 slots with brigade headquarters that have only a few hundred, said Maj. Gen. Roger P. Lempke, president of the Adjutants General Association of the United States.

The National Guard, which represents about 38 percent of the U.S. military's force structure, has served heavily in Iraq, deploying seven combat brigades as well as headquarters and other units with tens of thousands of troops since the war began. Last fall, it surged 50,000 troops to respond to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

"There's a very strong sense out there among our political leadership that the Guard should not be reduced in any way right now," Lempke said yesterday. "We don't know where the war is going. We're very heavily deployed" and the suggested cuts "didn't set well," said Lempke, whose association represents the senior leaders of the Army and Air National Guard in the 54 states, territories and the District of Columbia.

A bipartisan group of 75 U.S. senators yesterday sent Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld a letter stating they "strongly oppose" reported proposals by the Pentagon to cut National Guard force levels.

"We respectfully oppose proposals to cut the end-strength of the National Guard," said the letter from Sen. Christopher S. Bond (R-Mo.) and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), co-chairs of the Senate's National Guard Caucus. The letter was signed by 73 other senators.

Lempke said he welcomed the Army's commitment to keep end strength at 350,000, which he said will help ensure budget money is allocated for the necessary training and recruitment.

Schoomaker said the Army would progress with a plan to cut the number of National Guard combat brigades from 34 to 28, but reiterated a plan to replace them with six support brigades. One reason for the reduction in combat brigades, he said, was that many of the units were not fully manned or equipped, a situation worsened when soldiers and gear were shifted to units deploying for Iraq -- a process the Army calls "cross-leveling."

"We've used 34 brigades all over the world, and we've had to cross-level big time since 9/11 to make that happen," Vaughn said.

The Army plan calls for ensuring the 28 remaining combat brigades will be fully manned, trained and equipped to be ready to deploy, Schoomaker said. Toward this goal, the Army has budgeted about $21 billion from 2005 to 2011 to modernize equipment for the National Guard, which he said was a fourfold increase over funding levels in 1999.

"This is a tremendous investment," Schoomaker said. "This is not taking things down; this is building wholeness up."