Army chief talks new deployments; ‘grave’ readiness concern

Posted 2014-10-03 13:47 by Grunt Report

Soldiers will soon see new deployments and rotations to hot spots around the world, even as the Army slashes its active-duty force to fit a tightening budget.

“Today we have soldiers deployed on missions in Europe, in Asia, in the Middle East, in Africa, all doing very important missions simultaneously,” said Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ray Odierno in an exclusive interview Sept. 25 with Army Times.

One of Odierno’s top concerns is making sure these soldiers are ready and properly trained before they deploy, he said, but that’s getting tougher and tougher. Heavy and rapid budget cuts are steadily chipping away at the force, and readiness is the next victim.

Russian aggression, the increasing threat of the Islamic State group and the impending deployment of “probably thousands of soldiers” to fight Ebola has Odierno worried.

“What I worry about is the readiness of these forces and our ability to meet these demands if the readiness starts to decrease in ’16, ’17, and ’18,” he said. “For me, that’s a grave concern.”

In the last several months commitments have only risen, Odierno said.

“One of the things that’s changed in the world is the velocity of instability and the necessity to deploy our capabilities simultaneously to several different continents at the same time.”

That increasingly common trend is reflected in the new Army operating concept, which the service will roll out in the coming weeks.

“In the past, we maybe focused on one big fight somewhere,” Odierno said during a recent meeting with defense reporters. “We believe, with the new Army operating concept, we have to be able to do multiple small-scale things simultaneously. We might have to be able to operate with smaller capability on four different continents at the same time because that’s the way the world is developing.”

Odierno reinforced the concept during his Sept. 25 interview with Army Times.

The future of warfare likely will call on the Army to deploy in smaller formations and operate in joint, multinational and inter-organizational environments, Odierno said.

“We have to be more tailorable and scalable. We have to have smaller footprints. We have to operate in environments that are austere,” he said. “We need an Army that can be adaptive, innovative, exploits the initiative, and can solve problems in many different ways.”

This is critical as the Army is poised to drop to 490,000 soldiers by the end of 2015, and 450,000 by 2017. It’s expected that Congress will force more cuts in 2016 and the reduction of the Army to 420,000 by 2019.

“I’ve got to downsize while we actually meet these commitments that are increasing, while also trying to take care of the young men and women who serve,” Odierno said.

In addition to its commitment in Afghanistan, which includes a corps headquarters, two division headquarters and multiple brigades, here’s an overview of where the Army is going today:

Iraq

The 1st Infantry Division headquarters will deploy to Iraq in late October as the U.S. steps up its war against the Islamic State group, the Pentagon announced Sept. 25.

The Big Red One, of Fort Riley, Kansas, will be the first division headquarters to go to Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011. About 500 soldiers will deploy, with about 200 of them going into Iraq and the rest remaining somewhere in the Central Command area of responsibility.

The soldiers are preparing for a one-year mission.

Odierno said the soldiers, at least for now, will be focused on a support mission.

“We’re going to train and advise and help develop Iraqi security forces, [and] begin to train some Syrian elements,” he said.

Asked whether the mission could expand beyond these roles, Odierno said, “We constantly assess how it’s going, and based on that, we’ll provide recommendations. But for right now, that’s the mission.”

The 1st Infantry Division headquarters will join its 1st Brigade Combat Team in the region; the brigade deployed to Kuwait in June as part of a regular rotation of forces.

In recent months, the division has remained busy even as it has been downsizing as part of the Army’s ongoing drawdown.

The division’s 2nd Brigade Combat Team was the first brigade to be aligned with a geographic combatant command under the Army’s regionally aligned forces concept. The 2nd BCT was aligned with Africa Command and spent more than a year sending small groups of soldiers to AFRICOM’s area of operations for military-to-military engagements, exercises and other theater security cooperation activities as needed by the AFRICOM commander.

The brigade recently handed off the mission to the division’s 4th BCT.

Meanwhile, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, at Fort Knox, Kentucky, was inactivated this summer, and the division’s 1st BCT remains in Kuwait for its nine-month tour.

Africa

About 1,400 soldiers will head to Liberia this month to help support the fight against the Ebola virus that is spreading across West Africa.

The Army’s 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, will provide about 700 of those soldiers, while the other 700 will be mostly combat engineers culled from Army units across the force.

The soldiers will be among the total of 3,000 U.S. troops whom the Pentagon plans to send into West Africa this fall.

The deployments are expected in the next 30 to 60 days, Odierno said.

The plan is for U.S. troops to provide capability and infrastructure for non-governmental agencies as they treat patients, Odierno said. Aviation assets will probably be important as “infrastructure is pretty poor, especially in the rainy season.”

He does not expect soldiers to interact with Ebola patients. Army medical personnel also aren’t going to treat Ebola patients.

“One of the important things we’re working is the protection and training of the people going there, making sure they understand how you protect yourself in that environment,” Odierno said.

SOURCE: Read the full article here.
BY: Michelle Tan