The Senate, in its debate on the bill, is considering language from the Armed Services Committee that would allow an increase of 30,000 by 2009.
Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) said he planned to introduce an amendment to that bill that would permanently add 20,000 troops. And Massachusetts Sen. John F. Kerry, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has called for a permanent increase of 30,000 troops.
One argument against expansion is that troops are getting increasingly expensive. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated that adding about 10,000 troops costs $1 billion annually. The Army has said that adding 30,000 troops would eventually add $3.6 billion to its budget -- not counting training, operating and equipment costs.
Military personnel costs have grown 30% between fiscal 2000 and 2005, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service said in a report released Thursday.
Personnel accounts for more than half of the Army's budget. Once an increase in the ranks is voted into law, the cost of those new soldiers' pensions and benefits remains a permanent obligation.
"Congress can only fund us one year at a time," Schoomaker said. "They can encumber us forever. We are very reluctant to be encumbered by more [personnel] than is necessary."
He said the Army had another solution in mind: remaking itself by creating as many as 15 additional active-duty combat brigades. They would be smaller than today's combat units and would employ technology, speed and increased efficiency to add power, he said.
Acknowledging that the pace of the last three years has been rough on Army families, Schoomaker said the changes to the Army's structure were designed to limit deployments to one year in any three-year period for active-duty soldiers and one year for every five to six years of service among reservists.
Addressing the future mission of the Army, Schoomaker said religious and ethnic extremism posed a long-term threat that could involve weapons of mass destruction. "I can't remember a time that, honestly, was more dangerous than what we're in today because of the nature of this threat," he said.
The U.S. plans to keep at least 138,000 troops in Iraq through 2005. A plan to cut the force to between 105,000 and 115,000 as political power is turned over to an interim Iraqi government was discarded in the face of the continuing insurgency.
Schoomaker said that if the war on terrorism and the war in Iraq continued to strain the military, his plan to remake the Army could hit snags.
"If we get to a point in 2007 that says I can't make the efficiencies, I'm going to say we need a permanent" increase in manpower, he said.
