US presence in Germany may rise despite pull-out

[Scro]

STUTTGART (Germany) - The US military will keep a 'significant' troop presence in Germany and even expand some bases, despite the planned withdrawal of two Cold War-era divisions over the next decade, said a senior US commander.

General Charles Wald, deputy head of the US military's European Command, also said major Air Force installations in Germany would be untouched by the troop realignment plans that President George W. Bush announced on Monday.

Gen Wald said on Thursday that a new, mobile brigade using lighter Stryker armoured vehicles would be added, and major headquarters would also stay.

'The real issue is not the percentage of troops leaving, so much as there will still be a significant capability left here, and it will be transformed to be more mobile, more light, and more responsive,' he said at a news conference at European Command headquarters in Stuttgart. The sprawling Ramstein air base in western Germany, already a major strategic airlift hub for the US military's global operations, 'will become even larger', he said.

http://www.straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/latest/story/0,4390,268169,00.html?

[Endangered Specie]

1. Still got to remind them who won the war.

[Voltaire99]

2. Pathetic, isn't it?

What a waste of tax dollars. It would certainly be easier and cheaper to employ those troops in real jobs.

[allemand]

4. Unlike many Japanese most Germans are happy about the US presence

They would be even happier without the Iraq war, of course.

[hadrons]

3. well, I guess those military hospitals filling with wounded from Iraq ...

could be counted as an increase in presence

[0007]

5. Why are we bombing the living fuck out Najaf?

His religion is a threat to our way life? Oh I see, they won't go along with the ass kissing Iraqi regime.