WASHINGTON - The U.S. Army will reduce its core combat units to 33 from 45 by 2017 as part of a drawdown from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and in response to federal budget cuts.
The elimination of 12 brigade combat teams announced Tuesday at the Pentagon will help deliver on plans to pare the active-duty service to 490,000 troops. That’s 80,000 fewer soldiers than currently active and about 10,000 more than at the time of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Army also will reduce troops in other units not yet specified.
“We’ve tried to make it as small an impact as possible” on communities in states from New York to Texas and Washington that will lose units from local bases, Gen.Ray Odierno, the Army chief of staff, said Tuesday at a Pentagon news conference. No bases will be closed, he said.
Odierno said one additional brigade will likely be cut, but no final decisions have been made.
A brigade combat team is a self-contained unit, complete with its own headquarters, intelligence operations and medical capabilities. A team typically has 3,500 to 5,000 troops plus support personnel.
The reduction reflects in part the Pentagon’s increased emphasis on Asia. The strategy unveiled in January 2012 puts greater emphasis on naval and long-range air forces.
Deeper cuts will be needed if $500 billion in defense cuts over a decade remain in effect under sequestration, Odierno said. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is considering options for further cuts as part of a strategic management review. Pentagon proposals for that document have been submitted to Hagel.
Rep. Howard McKeon, R-Calif., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said his panel “will carefully examine the implications of this initial restructuring, but we all must understand that this is only the tip of the iceberg. Much deeper cuts are still to come.”
Odierno said a potential 100,000 more cuts would be spread out across the active-duty, National Guard and Reserves, and that there also could be reductions in the Army’s 13 aviation brigades.
The U.S. brigade combat teams to be deactivated now are based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington state; Fort Bliss and Fort Hood in Texas; Fort Riley in Kansas; Fort Stewart in Georgia; Fort Drum in New York; Fort Carson in Colorado; Fort Campbell and Fort Knox in Kentucky; and Fort Bragg in North Carolina, according to the documents. All of the bases except Fort Knox will continue to have brigade combat teams. Soldiers in the deactivated brigades would be transferred to other units.
Odierno said the Army tried to spread out the cuts geographically. He said Fort Knox scored the lowest in military value, but insisted the reduction was not the first step toward closing the base. He noted that about 4,000 civilians workers had been added there, as well as the Army’s recruiting command.
Among specific units being deactivated are the 4thInfantry Brigade Combat Team of the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg and the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team at Fort Drum.
Two of the 12 brigades are based in Grafenwoehr and Baumholder in Germany and will complete their deactivations this year, leaving two brigades in Europe to support NATO and U.S. missions, according to the documents.
These initial brigade cuts do not affect National Guard or Reserve units.
Officials said the decisions on the cuts were based on a variety of factors including required training resources, ranges, airspace and infrastructure, as well as the need to put units near leadership and headquarters units.
Information for this article was contributed by Tony Capaccio of Bloomberg News and by Lolita C. Baldor of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 06/26/2013