The US military says it will keep its European command in Germany - adding new brigades and expanding key bases - amid plans for a broader pull-out. Gen Charles Wald said three new brigades - numbering between 3,000 and 5,000 men each - will come to Germany. However, some 30,000 troops already stationed there are to be withdrawn. | 1st AD and 1st ID are coming home. |
US President George W Bush announced the withdrawal on Monday, as part of plans to upgrade Cold-War era military deployments for the "war on terror". The plans envisage some 70,000 US troops - currently stationed in western Europe and east Asia - being pulled out over the next six years to make way for smaller, more mobile deployments. Gen Wald said the US will not move its European command, which monitors an area covering 91 countries, from Germany. Nor will US Air Force bases in Germany be affected by the planned withdrawals, he said, with one of the bases, Ramstein, set to "become even larger". The new deployments coming to Germany are the Stryker armoured vehicle brigade, a paratrooper brigade and an expeditionary brigade. The withdrawal of about 30,000 soldiers from the heavier armoured fighting divisions will not take place before 2006, so that the views of the German government can be taken into account, Gen Wald said. German communities that have evolved to serve the bases earlier voiced alarm at President Bush's withdrawal plans, fearing their livelihoods will be endangered. | Sorry, but that's not why we were there. |
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