Military scales back Romania rotation plans

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Military scales back Romania rotation plans
By Charlie Coon, Stars and Stripes
European edition, Thursday, February 21, 2008

HEIDELBERG, Germany — The U.S. military has scaled back plans for troop rotations to Joint Task Force-East in Romania and will send a battalion there for training this summer instead of a full brigade.

Military planners had hoped to deploy a full brigade of 3,500 soldiers for training with Romanian forces, as well as with Bulgarian forces at Bulgaria’s Novo Selo Training Area.

But the military’s operations tempo due to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan limits the availability of troops, U.S. Army Europe officials said Wednesday.

“We’re probably looking at a couple of years until you see brigades come out,” said Col. Bob Hess, USAREUR’s chief of plans. “Of course, that’s going to be driven by what’s going on in the wars. That’s our No. 1 priority.”

The battalion going this summer will be led by a headquarters group from Joint Multinational Training Command in Hohenfels, Germany.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=52660