Pentagon to lengthen troop duty

WASHINGTON – The Pentagon will lengthen tours of duty for all active-duty Army units in Iraq to 15 months from the current 12 months as the military struggles to supply enough troops for the conflict, two defense officials said Wednesday.\nDefense Secretary Robert Gates planned to announce the decision Wednesday afternoon, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.\nIt is the latest move by the Pentagon to cope with the strains of fighting two wars simultaneously and maintaining a higher troop level in Iraq as part of President Bush’s revised strategy for stabilizing Baghdad.\nOfficials on Monday said some 13,000 National Guard troops were receiving orders alerting them to prepare for possible deployment to Iraq – meaning a second tour for several thousand of them. Officials said a final decision to deploy the four infantry combat brigades later this year will be based on conditions on the ground and named specific Guard units based in Arkansas, Indiana, Oklahoma and Ohio.\nThe Pentagon said the Guard units would serve as replacement forces in the regular troop rotation for the war, and would not be connected to the controversial military buildup that was ordered by President Bush and which officials say is starting to show some success in curbing violence in Baghdad.\nWord has also emerged that Defense Department officials were considering a plan to extend by up to four months the tours of duty for as many as 15,000 U.S. troops already in Iraq as a way to maintain the buildup past the summer.\nThere are currently 145,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and when the buildup is completed by June, there would be more than 160,000, officials are calculating.\nDefense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said Wednesday that with the way the rotation schedule is laid out now, the force size would begin to fall after August unless some action is taken – sending some troops earlier than expected or keeping some beyond their planned homecomings.\nHe declined to confirm details of any of the options under consideration.\n–AP Military Writer Robert Burns and AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report.