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The Pentagon said it is ready to bring home 50,000 soldiers stationed overseas, mostly in South Korea and Germany, and relocate them in bases across the United States, The New York Times reported Wednesday.
The plan has already been approved by US President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and a formal announcement of the plan will be made later this week, said the newspaper.
The relocation is part of probably the most significant US military restructuring scheme since the end of the Cold War, which will not only withdraw overseas troops back home, but will also increase the size of the US Army by 10 brigades, or 100,000 soldiers.
Pentagon officials said the move aims to locate troops much more closer to training centers so families of the soldiers don't need to move frequently.
Once the relocation is completed, the US division headquarter and two brigades in South Korea will be reduced to one brigade while the two division headquarters and four brigades in Germany will be replaced by only one cavalry regiment.
Another change in the relocation plan with the Army is a proposal to move the I Corps headquarters, now at Fort Lewis, Washington State, to Japan, although the details are still being discussed between Washington and Tokyo.
After the relocation, several US states with large military bases, Colorado, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, New York, North Carolina and Texas, will have their Army population grow, with the addition of at least one brigade each, or about 5,000 soldiers, and their families.
For the first time in decades, most of the 10 US Army division headquarters will be at the same base with all of their brigades, rather than the current system that, for some units, places division headquarters and brigades at separate bases in the United States and even in Germany.
(Xinhua News Agency July 28, 2005)
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