Bush Announces Major Troop Shift

President Bush announced that as many as 70,000 U.S. troops who are now stationed in Western Europe and Asia would be shifted over the next few years in one of the largest military realignments since the end of the Cold War.

Two Army divisions will return to the United States from Germany, Pentagon officials said Monday.

The 1st Armored Division and 1st Infantry Division probably won't start leaving their bases in Germany until 2006 at the earliest, Pentagon officials said. They will be replaced by a brigade — a much smaller unit — equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, which are much lighter and quicker than the M1A1 Abrams tanks used by the divisions they will replace.

The United States will close nearly half of all its hundreds of installations in Europe as part of the massive restructuring plan, defense officials told reporters on condition of anonymity. A Pentagon spokesman said the officials had to speak anonymously because "President Bush made the announcement."

That announcement came in Cincinnati on Monday morning, where Mr. Bush told a Veterans of Foreign Wars convention that the moves were meant to enable the United States to react more quickly to developing trouble spots.

"Our armed forces have changed a lot. ... They're better able to strike anywhere in the world ... on short notice," Mr. Bush said. "Yet for decades America's armed forces have essentially remained where the wars of the last century have ended — in Europe and in Asia."

The action follows years of debate over how to position U.S. troops to respond to modern-day threats such as terrorism and continued unrest in the Middle East. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said he wants troops to based more flexibly so they can be used for a wider variety of missions, rather than being tied to a single country.

The Pentagon and State Department officials offered few specifics about the plan, saying negotiations with U.S. allies continue. Particularly sensitive are talks involving Japan, which hosts more than 40,000 U.S. troops, and South Korea, where officials say about one-third of the 37,000 U.S. troops stationed there will be leaving in coming years.

The changes would not affect the more than 150,000 U.S. troops involved in or supporting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At the Cincinnati convention, veterans wearing the group's trademark caps covered with colorful pins gave Mr. Bush a warm welcome. Democratic presidential challenger John Kerry addresses the group Wednesday.

The president said the repositioning of forces would help save money on maintaining bases overseas and give troops and their families more stability.

"Our service members will have more time on the home front, and more predictability and fewer moves over a career," he added.

His speech came as the U.S. death toll in Iraq was approaching 1,000 and National Guard and Reserve troops were serving extended tours of duty.

Kerry aides blame a lack of postwar planning by the Bush administration for the increased burden shouldered by reservists and guard members. They also note that the Massachusetts senator has proposed adding 40,000 troops to the regular Army and expanding special operations forces.

The Democrat has said he would try to withdraw some troops from Iraq during his first six months in office. Mr. Bush has criticized that idea, saying would inspire insurgents to wait until the U.S. presence was thinned before attacking.

The VFW convention is getting special attention from both political parties partly because it is being held in Ohio, perhaps the hottest battlefield of this year's election. Mr. Bush carried Ohio by 3.6 percentage points in 2000 over Democrat Al Gore.

Kerry was vacationing in Idaho, but running mate John Edwards and supporters were stressing a theme that they've been campaigning on all year — that Mr. Bush puts corporate interests ahead of workers and the middle class.

Edwards, a North Carolina senator and former trial attorney, was arguing the campaign's case that Mr. Bush has "the most aggressive anti-regulatory posture in memory" during a stop in Willard, Mo., on Monday.

"We've unfortunately seen too many examples of times when this administration should have stood up for the interests of working Americans but looked the other way instead," he said in prepared remarks. "When John and I are in the White House, the for-sale sign is going to come off the front door."

A Kerry-Edwards campaign report attempts to tie donations from various industries to favors that the industry got from the administration. For example, it says: