National Guard and Reserve troops likely to serve a full 12 months.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The Army is telling National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq they will be there a full 12 months, apparently surprising some who had believed the clock started ticking on one-year tours once they reached mobilization stations in the United States.
Counting time they spent getting ready before they went and to demobilize after their tours, many reservists now in Iraq probably will find themselves on active duty and away from their civilian jobs for well over a year, officials said Tuesday.
An Army spokesman, Lt. Col. Tom Rheinlander, said this does not represent a change in policy, even if some National Guard and Reserve soldiers had thought their active duty would end after a 12-month period that included the weeks or months they spent getting ready to go to Iraq.
Reaction from reservists in Iraq indicated confusion.
“The biggest problem is not having a definite answer,” said Maj. Stephen Iacovelli, 37, from Schaumburg, Ill., a member of the Army Reserve’s 362nd Psychological Operations Company, of Fayetteville, Ark.
“We’ve heard two things,” said Iacovelli, interviewed in the Tikrit area. “One is that we’ll be stateside by December. The other is that we’ll stay here till March or April. If the case is the latter, it will be a disappointment for some, but the troops were told initially that their tour could last up to two years.”
The military has authority from President Bush to keep reservists on active duty for up to two years at a stretch, and some have served that long. Most, however, had expected to return to civilian life after 12 months.
Separately, the general who commanded all Marine forces in Iraq during the war said Tuesday the last group of Marines will leave Iraq by the first week of October. Lt. Gen. James Conway, commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force, returned Monday from Iraq after turning over responsibility for security in south-central Iraq to a Polish-led multinational force.
Conway said he found the Iraqis to be more than eager to regain control over their country.
“I used to think Americans were the most impatient people on earth; I now believe that distinction belongs to the Iraqis,” he told a Pentagon news conference.
Conway also said that although no weapons of mass destruction have been discovered in the part of Iraq in which his troops operated, he thinks it likely that elements of a weapons program eventually will be uncovered.
Rheinlander said the policy of keeping Army soldiers in Iraq for 12 months has been in effect since it was announced July 23 by Gen. John Keane, then the acting Army chief of staff.
In his presentation, however, Keane did not say that 12-month tours for National Guard and Reserve members excluded the predeployment period in the United States and the demobilization period.
In fact Keane made a point of explaining that two National Guard brigades designated for deployment to Iraq next March would serve six months there, with their total time on active duty not to exceed 12 months. “From alert to redeployment and return to home station will last a year,” he said. Left unsaid was that this would be the exception rather than the norm.
Rheinlander said a message was delivered to all troops in Iraq in recent days clarifying that both active duty and reserve units will serve 12 months in-country. Rheinlander refused to release the message, saying it was classified.
Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked about tour lengths for National Guard and Reserve troops during his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee. In contrast to the statements by Army officials, Myers seemed to indicate there had been a change of policy.
“They will be extended to meet our policy goal of up to 12 months in Iraq,” Myers said, “and given their mobilization and demobilization time frames on top of that, they’ll (be) over one year.”
Myers said extra hardships are to be expected during times of war.
“We are a nation at war and … we expect more, at least temporarily, from our reserve component,” he said.
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Associated Press writer Tarek Al-Issawi contributed to this report from Iraq.
AP-ES-09-09-03 1645EDT
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