Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, Commander Of Multinational Corps Iraq, Apologizes For Extensions With No Notice To Families

Leaks to the media forced Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to speed up releasing his decision to increase tour lengths for soldiers assigned to U.S. Central Command from a year to 15 months.

The notification of the decision to soldiers and their families was made simultaneous with the news briefing. Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, the commander of Multinational Corps Iraq, today apologized to the families -- many of whom heard about the decision on television.

"I know the announcement the other day was probably one that surprised them," Odierno told Pentagon reporters via teleconference from Baghdad. "I just want to comment to them that we appreciate everything that they're sacrificing, everything that they're doing. They are the strength behind all these great soldiers that are over here today."

Odierno said 15-month deployments are needed to ensure that the Army retains the capacity to sustain the deployed force. The force will rise to 20 brigades by the end of May. The program also gives predictability for soldiers and their families, Odierno said. "This policy will ensure 12 months at home station between rotations," he said. "There's no doubt that this decision was a difficult one, and I am very aware that it will be hard on soldiers and their families.

"However, all who serve understand the importance of what we are trying to accomplish here and that the mission will always come first," he said.

(Taken from a DoD’s American Forces Press Service news article that was written by Jim Garamone)
File Photo of Odierno from JCS.mil website

Gates, Pace Call on Congress to Fund IED Research

About Photo: U.S. Marine Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testify about the additional funding requested for Iraq and Afghanistan before the Senate Appropriations Committee in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, February 27, 2007.

DoD photo by USAF Staff Sgt D Myles Cullen
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Peter Pace Call on Congress to Fund IED Research

Defense leaders yesterday called on Congress to approve a further $2.4 billion to defeat the biggest killer of Americans in the Middle East: the improvised explosive device.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. Peter Pace told the Senate Appropriations Committee that the fiscal 2007 emergency supplemental request includes money to fund research into defeating IEDs. The money is in addition to $2 billion Congress already has appropriated this year to deal with the problem.

Gates stressed to the senators that this is an overriding concern in DoD. "The most unpleasant aspect of my job is every night going home and hand-writing notes to the families of those who have been killed in action," Gates said. "And there's a sheet behind every one of those letters that tells me how they died, and about 70 percent of them are the IEDs. So the whole Department of Defense is as highly motivated as an organization can be to try and figure out a way to get around these."

Gates said he has met with retired Army Gen. Montgomery Meigs, the director of the Joint IED Defeat Organization. "I asked General Meigs, ... 'Do you have enough money? Are you pursuing every avenue that makes any sense at all?'" he said. "And he assured me that with the enactment of the request that we have made both for the supplemental and then for (fiscal) '08 that he has the resources that he needs to do this."

Pace said the effort against IEDs is more than simply looking for a technological answer. Experts in Iraq learn from every device that explodes, then they take the information and share it widely "so the troops training right now to go over overseas in the future have the information from the most recent tactics, techniques and procedures of the enemy," Pace said.

Pace said the coalition and Iraqi forces look at the entire IED process, adding that coalition forces have secured 435,000 tons of ammunition from more than 15,000 locations in Iraq. "Just getting at the source of the explosives is part of the problem," he said, "then the factories where they're built, and the individuals who build them, and then the individuals who deliver them, and then the individuals who put them in place. So we go after the entire chain of events."

Pace said coalition and Iraqi security forces find more than half of IEDs that are emplaced. "And then, thanks to the technologies involved, we have fewer and fewer casualties for the explosions that do take place," he said.

There is no easy solution, Gates said, and the United States must keep pushing at the problem. "The reality is we face an agile and a smart adversary, and as soon as we ... find one way of trying to thwart their efforts, they find a new technology or a new way of going about their business," he said. "But I can assure you this is a very high priority for us.
(Taken from a DoD - American Forces Press Service news article that was written by Jim Garamone)

Related article of interest below:
DoD Taps Industry Know-How in Ongoing Counter-IED Efforts