By PAUL McLEARY and JOHN T. BENNETT
WASHINGTON — In a briefing on Tuesday afternoon that has ignited furious debate on Capitol Hill and in communities that depend on nearby military installations as a key part of their economy, Army Chief Gen. Ray Odierno announced a sweeping plan to cut 12 brigade combat teams (BCT) from the active force by 2017.
The announcement adds critical details to how the service will reduce its end strength by 80,000 soldiers by 2017, but could also be merely the first round in a series of even deeper cuts that the force will endure if sequestration remains the law of the land in 2014 and after.
The reduction of BCTs from 45 to 33 doesn’t tell the whole story of what the Army is doing, however, since the service will protect its overall combat punch by retaining 95 out of its 98 combat battalions while taking cuts in headquarters positions across the brigades.
To do this, the service will increase the number of maneuver battalions in each brigade from two to three, while adding engineering and fires capabilities to each unit.
Army leadership has for months been talking about reducing the Army’s 45 BCTs by about eight — it had already identified two heavy brigades stationed in Europe that will stand down by the end of 2013 — as the Army winnows its force structure from more than 560,000 personnel to 490,000 by 2017.
The general called the moves “one of the largest organizational changes probably since World War II” for the service.
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