Gates, Mullen Support Force Reduction Plans

Reductions in end strength for the Army and Marine Corps beginning in 2015 will be conditions-based, and can be tailored if required when the time comes to implement them, defense leaders told Congress today.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee they support plans to reduce ground forces end strength. The plan factors in the drawdown of all U.S. forces in Iraq by the year’s end, and a reduction of forces in Afghanistan, Gates told the panel.

“A big assumption in this is that we have a very much smaller presence in Afghanistan at the end of 2014 than we do now,” he said. “And I think you will know as early as the end of 2012 [or] beginning of 2013 whether that is going to happen.”

Gates and Mullen said the plan also supports continuing efforts to increase “dwell time” at home stations between deployments.

The Marine Corps leadership fully supports reducing the Corps’ end strength when it completes operations in Afghanistan, Gates said. Both Marine Corps Commandant Gen. James F. Amos and his predecessor, retired Gen. James T. Conway, believe the current Marine Corps is “both too large and too heavy to fulfill its traditional missions going forward,” the secretary said.

READ MORE>>