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Gates: More US troops could head to Afghanistan
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-07-17 09:44

During a question-and-answer session with soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division, Gates also said he is looking at beefing up the Army with more troops. He did not say by how many, or what the plan would cost, but predicted that he'll decide as early as next week.

"We are very mindful of stress on the force," he said.

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Earlier this week, Sen. Joe Lieberman filed legislation to authorize the hiring of 30,000 new active-duty Army soldiers for the 2010 fiscal year that begins October 1.

In a statement, Lieberman called it a "critical first step toward making sure that our military leaders can execute their strategy while also reducing the heavy strain on our soldiers and their families."

Most of the 200 soldiers in Thursday's short town hall-style meeting are headed to Iraq later this fall. Their commander, Maj. Gen. Mike Oates, returned from his third tour in Iraq only 50 days ago and said he is working to easing stress on soldiers and their family members who have faced a seemingly revolving door of deployments since 2001.

"What we're trying to do is help everybody receive this stress and deal with it better," Oates told reporters. "And there's a lot of room for growth there."

Gates stopped at Fort Drum on his way to Chicago, where he gave a feisty speech Thursday evening hammering Congress for trying to tack on billions of dollars for additional F-22 fighter jets to the Pentagon's 2010 spending plan.

Troop safety remained on Gates' mind, however, as he told a friendly audience of the Economic Club of Chicago that high Army suicide rates "are a reflection of the stress on the force."

Fifty-one soldiers have killed themselves since March 1, the Army reported Thursday. Still, that indicates a tapering of the extremely high numbers of suicides in January and February, when 41 soldiers killed themselves amid intense Army efforts to stem the deaths.

"My guess is, ultimately the solution to this problem is where our soldiers have more time at home, where there's less stress and where we are not putting people through four and five rotations in incredibly stressful situations, where it's in Iraq or Afghanistan," Gates said.

He also said anew that Pentagon lawyers are looking at whether gay troops who are outed by hostile colleagues can be protected from military discharge until Congress changes the controversial "don't ask, don't tell" law.

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