Military Deployment

Soldiers heading to war this summer are likely to see their tours shortened from 15 months to 12 months, even if troop cuts in Iraq are suspended in July as expected, the Army's top general said. Gen. George W. Casey Jr. said that while his forces are strained by nearly seven years at war, the Army can maintain 15 combat brigades in battle for at least a couple of months after July while military commanders assess the situation in Iraq. Casey said that his goal is to eventually shorten war deployments to nine months.

Moving to relieve strain on troops, the Army plans to reduce the length of combat tours from 15 months to one year after the troop buildup in Iraq winds down this summer, top officials told Congress on Tuesday. Gen. George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff, said he would trim combat tours once the Pentagon fulfilled plans to reduce the number of Army brigades in Iraq by July. Also Tuesday, the Senate resumed debate on the war, taking up a measure by Sen. Russell D. Feingold (D-Wis.

By many important measures, the U.S. military has reason to feel better about Iraq. Violence has declined, casualties are down, the president is touting the current strategy and the public's anguish has ebbed. But inside the Pentagon, turmoil over the war has increased. Top levels of the military leadership remain divided over war strategy and the pace of troop cuts. Tension has risen along with concern over the strain of unending cycles of deployments.

Call it the forgotten front. The deployments are long, often tedious, sometimes quite dangerous. The weather is hot, the incremental business of improving infrastructure can be frustrating, and most Americans probably could not find the country on a map. But the U.S. is determined to keep insurgents, homegrown or from neighboring Somalia, from toppling the government of Djibouti or using the country as a launching pad. Marines have been deploying there for a decade, with no end in sight.

President Bush is scheduled to announce today that Army units heading to war after Aug. 1 will serve 12-month tours rather than the current 15-month deployments, senior defense officials said. The reduced tour length will not apply to any soldiers now serving in Iraq, Afghanistan or other war zones, although that could change if security conditions improve, the officials said Wednesday. They spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of Bush's planned speech on the subject.

For weeks now, the men in black turbans have been coming. They travel in pairs or small groups, on battered motorbikes or in dusty pickups, materializing out of the desert with Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers slung from their shoulders. With the advent of warmer weather, villagers say, Taliban fighters are filtering back from their winter shelters in Pakistan, ensconcing themselves across Afghanistan's wind-swept south.

One in a series of articles about three teenagers and their wartime enlistment in the Marines. -- In the nine months after he graduated from high school, Lance Cpl. Daryl Crookston was trained to close and kill. The proper pursuit of the enemy was pounded into him during boot camp and combat drills. Last month, as his unit prepared to ship out to Afghanistan, some Marines in Crookston's platoon didn't think he was capable of killing a man. He's deeply religious.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it is building up troop contingents in two separatist regions of Georgia because of what it called provocative actions by the former Soviet republic. Details of the buildup have not been specified, but the announcement adds to tensions between the small Caucasus country and its giant neighbor. It also raises fears of a renewal of the fighting that broke out in the regions after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Georgia cut off talks with Russia about Moscow's efforts to join the World Trade Organization in protest of Russian ties to the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, a top negotiator said Tuesday.

The number of soldiers forced to remain in the Army involuntarily under the military's controversial "stop-loss" program has risen sharply since the Pentagon extended combat tours last year, officials said Thursday. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates was briefed about the program by Army officials who said that thousands of new stop-loss orders were issued to keep soldiers from leaving the service after Gates ordered combat tours extended from 12 to 15 months last spring.

Prince William is heading to the azure waters of the Caribbean as part of a two-month deployment in the Royal Navy despite his request to be as close as possible to conflict. The assignment, which begins Monday, will see the second in line to the throne spending much of his time trolling the West Indies aboard the Iron Duke, a frigate on hurricane relief duty and counter-narcotics patrol. Officers decided he could learn more in a short time by serving on the Iron Duke than by being sent to the Persian Gulf, where the Royal Navy is engaged in a number of operations.