Cold War Veterans Blog

More dwell time soon, but stop-loss continues

By William H. McMichael - Staff writer
Posted : Wednesday Dec 3, 2008 16:44:48 EST

Deploying troops should start to spend more time back home starting as early as this spring, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said today. But the Army program known as “stop-loss” that forces soldiers on deployment orders who are close to their end-of-service dates to stay on duty, he said, will continue through 2009.

“I’ve pressed on stop-loss ever since I got this job, because I don’t like it,” said Gates, speaking to Pentagon reporters a day after President-elect Barack Obama named him as his choice to continue in the job he’s held the past two years. But when asked if he could foresee an end to the policy in 2009, he replied, “No. No, I don’t.”

The problem, Gates said, is that a “significant percentage” of those affected by the policy are noncommissioned officers. “And the concern of the Army is that if you don’t use stop-loss, you end up gutting a unit of its experienced leadership, senior enlisted leadership.

“I would at least like to see us start heading in the right direction,” Gates said. “And I think we have leveled off, and [demand] has begun to decline very slowly. I hope that very soon, and with the drawdowns in Iraq, that we will begin to see a further decrease in stop-loss.”

The Army has said the same thing; personnel chief Lt. Gen. James Thurman said in May that he hoped the Army could end the practice by the fall of 2009.

Stop-loss, much despised in the ranks, prevents troops on deployment or mobilization orders within 90 days of their end-of-service date from walking away. According to the Army, 12,204 troops were affected by the policy as of Sept. 30: 6,714 active Army troops, 4,025 National Guard troops and 1,465 Reservists. At its March 2005 peak, 15,758 soldiers fell under such orders.

Time back home following deployments, known as “dwell time,” will probably increase gradually for soldiers and Marines, “rather than all of a sudden going from 1:1 to 1:2,” Gates said. “We may go from 12 months deployed to 15 months at home, or 18 months at home, and so on. And I think that process could begin ... as early as this spring.”

Currently, soldiers deployed after Aug. 1, 2008, limited to 12-month tours, are spending 12 months back home “at best,” Army Secretary Pete Geren has said. Marines deploy for seven months and are home for the same amount of time.

Gates, who said that he has “no intention of being a caretaker secretary” and that his agreement to stay in the job is “open-ended,” said he is comfortable with Obama’s plans for ending the war in Iraq.

“I think that I would subscribe to what the president-elect said yesterday in Chicago,” Gates said. “He repeated his desire to try and get our combat forces out within 16 months. But he also said that he wanted to have a responsible drawdown. And he also said that he was prepared to listen to his commanders. So I think that that’s exactly the position the president-elect should be in.”

Gates said that there were no negotiations over such positions when he met with Obama to discuss the job and that their Nov. 10 discussion focused on how to make the appointment work within the Obama administration, and on relationship-type issues.

“I think the president-elect has made it pretty clear that he wanted a team of people around him who would tell him what they thought and give him their best advice,” Gates said. “I think he has assembled that team.

“There will, no doubt, be differences among the team,” Gates said. “And it will be up to the president to make the decisions.”

Gates said the Status of Forces Agreement recently ratified by the Iraqi parliament and awaiting presidential approval has altered such plans in “significant ways,” noting that U.S. troops must be out of populated areas by the end of June 2009 and that provisional Iraqi control will have been extended by then to all 18 provinces.

“So we will confront or have a different kind of situation in Iraq at the end of June 2009 than we would have thought, perhaps, in June of 2008,” Gates said. “And I think that the commanders are already looking at what the implications of that are in terms of the potential for accelerating the drawdown and — and in terms of how we meet our obligations to the Iraqis.”

The timelines in the SOFA are longer than Obama has proposed, he noted, but definite. “So that bridge has been crossed,” he said. “And so the question is how do we do this in a responsible way. And nobody wants to put at risk the gains that have been achieved with so much sacrifice on the part of our soldiers and the Iraqis at this point.

“And so I think that the president-elect framed it just right yesterday,” Gates said.

The way ahead in Afghanistan, he said, will start with a review of the U.S. and NATO strategy and approach. “My own view, as I’ve said before, is it’s very important for us to do everything we can to make sure that the Afghans understand this is their fight and they have to be out front in this fight,” Gates said. “That’s why I’m such a strong supporter of accelerating the expansion of the Afghan army.”

He said Afghanistan is a “high priority” for Obama but said so far, there’s been no discussion of speeding up plans to boost U.S. troop strength by three brigade combat teams, one aviation support unit and an unspecified number of combat enablers, such as intelligence assets, beginning in the spring.

He acknowledged the continued concern over insurgent safe havens in neighboring Pakistan’s tribal areas, adding, “I think that we just need to continue looking at ways in which we can strengthen our partnership with Pakistan and do what we can to enable them to deal with the problem on their side of the border.

“I think that we are prepared to move as quickly as the Pakistanis are,” Gates said. “I know they’re uneasy about the American footprint in Pakistan. And I think we have to be sensitive to their political concerns.”

Gates — who revealed Tuesday that while he strives to be apolitical, he considers himself a Republican — said he didn’t feel uncomfortable Monday standing on that Chicago stage filled with career Democrats. Gates will be the first sitting defense secretary ever carried over by a newly elected president.

Gates noted that Obama will be the eighth president for whom he’s served — although all of his senior appointments have been under Republican presidents.

Gates added that he’s been “very impressed” with Obama — “first of all, the things he said to me and the things he has said on the campaign trail about the military and his respect for the institution. I was impressed by his reaching out to Admiral [Mike] Mullen (chairman of the Joint Chiefs) to come sit down and talk with him. And he has made clear that he wants to have a regular dialogue with the chairman and the chiefs and the commanders.”

Gates said he’s been equally impressed by Michelle Obama’s desire to work on behalf of military families.

“I think all of these things send very positive signals to our men and women in uniform about the way the new commander in chief looks upon his responsibilities as commander in chief, but also as the person for whom all of these men and women in uniform work,” Gates said.

Gates also expressed thanks to President Bush for giving him the opportunity to serve in what he called “the most gratifying experience of my life,” and thanked him “for his support in the difficult decisions I’ve had to make. It has been an honor and a pleasure to work for and with him.”

———

Staff writer Michelle Tan contributed to this report