General Smith: Longer surge could force more Iraq extensions, early deployments

More troops could be extended in Iraq, and stateside units deployed sooner than expected, if the current “surge” of troops lasts beyond the summer — something the top U.S. commander in Iraq has already said he expects to happen...

That could extend tours for at least some deployed units, according to Air Force Gen. Lance Smith, the commander in charge of supplying trained units to overseas combatant commanders.

“If [the surge] were going to last past the summer, I think we’d at least have to look at some extensions,” Smith, commander of the Norfolk, Va.-based U.S. Joint Forces Command, told defense reporters Wednesday at a breakfast roundtable in Washington.

Read the rest at Air Force Times

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