How many active-duty US Army troops have been deployed in Iraq?
About 400,000 troops out of an active-duty force of 504,000 have already served one tour of duty in Iraq, according to Peter Spiegel of the Los Angeles Times. More than one-third of them have already been deployed twice. How is Iraq affecting the army’s equipment? By the spring of 2005, the US Army had already “rotated 40% of its equipment through Iraq and Afghanistan”. Marine Corps mid-2005 estimates were that 40% percent of its ground equipment and 20% of its air assets were being used to support current operations, according to analyst Carl Conetta. In the harsh climate of Iraq, the wear and tear on equipment have been enormous. Conetta estimates that whenever the Iraq and Afghanistan wars end, the postwar repair bill for army and marine equipment will be in the range of US$25 billion to $40 billion. How many extra dollars does a desperately overstretched US Army claim to need in the coming defense budget, mainly because of wear and tear in Iraq? A total of $25 billion above budget
