Top Generals Hint at Army Expansion of 60,000 Troops

[ECH1969]

The strain on the Army from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan has become so great that top officials are now privately saying the only long-term solution may be to make the overall size of the Army bigger, adding as many as 60,000 troops, ABC News has learned.

It's not a request or a recommendation yet, but senior Army officials have discussed this for weeks and are now in agreement that the Army could meet its worldwide obligations more easily by expanding the overall size of its force.

There are currently 501,000 troops with the level expected to reach 512,000 by the end of next year. To add an additional 60,000 is a costly proposition that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has consistently opposed.

In a sign of the strain on U.S. troops, a brigade from the Army's 1st cavalry division was ordered today to return to Iraq a month earlier than planned, while another Army unit, now fighting in the violent city of Ramadi, has been ordered to extend its year-long stay in Iraq by another six weeks.

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=2489700&page=1