WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Bush administration plans to announce next week that U.S. soldiers' combat tours will be reduced from 15 months to 12 months
in Iraq and Afghanistan beginning later this summer, The Associated Press has learned. The decision is expected to get final, formal approval in the days ahead. It
comes as Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, prepares to deliver a progress report to Congress next week on the improved security situation there.
He is also expected to make recommendations for future troop levels.
A senior administration official said Friday that plans are to deploy soldiers for 12 months and then give them 12 months rest time at home. Exactly which units would
be affected is not clear. The official spoke on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the decision to extend
deployments from 12 to 15 months last year, because that was the only way the Army could provide enough troops for the Bush-ordered military buildup aimed at
quelling the violence in Baghdad.
Gates; Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff; and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have since said that they wanted to go back to 12-month
tours as soon as possible. Casey has pushed shorter deployments to reduce the strain on troops battered by long and repeated tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But that
goal has been hindered by the security demands in Iraq.
Officials have been tightlipped in recent days about the move to reduce the tours. Gates said Friday that he expected a decision by President Bush "fairly soon" on the
Army's proposal. But he also cautioned that cutting troops' time on the battlefront will impose limits on what the military can do in the future. "So I think the bottom line
is, we're all still looking at that. But I think we'll have a better idea of what we think we can do, what we ought to do, in the fairly near future," Gates said.
What the future holds for troops in Iraq will become clearer when Petraeus goes before congressional committees Tuesday. Petraeus is expected to lay out his proposal
for a pause in troop cuts after July, when the last of the five additional brigades ordered to Iraq last year have come home. And he will probably tell lawmakers how
many more troops could be withdrawn this year, as long as conditions in Iraq remained stable. His presentation will include Iraq war statistics reflecting the reduction
in violence over the past seven months, but it will also note the latest spike in fighting in Basra, as Iraqi security forces took on Shiite militias, and the attacks that
stretched out into Baghdad.
Petraeus and Ryan Crocker, the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, are expected to tout political advancements by the Iraqis, although they will note that much more needs to be
done. Officials said Friday that the Army proposal to reduce tours is on track. Top military leaders made it clear to Bush in a closed-door meeting late last month that
they are worried about the war's growing strain on troops and their families.
There are now 158,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, including 18 combat brigades, down from a peak of 20 brigades for much of the past year. By the end of July, military
leaders have said those numbers would fall to 140,000 troops, including 15 combat brigades. Casey has said he could reduce combat tours if the demands on the Army
were cut back to a total of 15 brigades in the war zone. At the end of July, there would be 13 in Iraq, along with two Marine units, and two Army brigades in Afghanistan.
In a related move Friday, Democrats signaled that they don't see much hope in ending the Iraq war this year so long as Bush insists that U.S. troops remain committed
there in large numbers. Still, party leaders wrote to Bush on Friday to tell him it's not too late to change course and plead with him not to leave the war for the next
president to handle. "We are deeply concerned that you and the congressional Republican leadership are intent on staying the current course throughout your
administration and then handing the Iraq war off to future presidents," the Democrats wrote.
Others said they hope to see continued efforts to force troop withdrawals, but they acknowledged that they were unlikely to succeed. "I expect most of our troops to still
be there" come the end of the year, said Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, chairman of the Armed Services Committee. "Until there's either a big enough majority in the
Senate or a change in the president's [approach], I don't see a significant improvement situation improvement in Iraq," Levin said.
Sen. Joe Biden, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, predicted that the situation in Iraq will grow considerably worse by September "because the administration
seems to have no political game plan."
Since Democrats lack a veto-proof majority, they have repeatedly failed to force Bush to accept any anti-war legislation, including one measure supported by many
Republicans that would have required that troops spend more time at home between combat tours.
