U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the United States will delay the decrease of U.S. troop levels currently in Europe, the Pentagon said Wednesday. Gates' statement came after requests from U.S. commanders calling for the United States to maintain its military personnel levels in Europe at around 40,000. The statement also came as two brigades were set to return to the United States, but stayed after the Pentagon said that they “will remain in Europe within EUCOM (U.S. Europe Command) for a couple of more years,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell. The United States' troop maintenance in Europe is a “temporary delay, nothing permanent,” Morrell said. Richard Cody, who is the U.S. Army's Vice Chief of Staff, said that the United States would retain “two heavy brigade combat teams” in Germany “to meet the near-term theater security requirements.” The brigades will later be returned to the United States by 2013, Cody said. Gates' decision came as a partial submission to demands from U.S. commanders in Europe to halt the drawdown of U.S. troops in Europe that began two years ago. U.S. Generals Bantz Craddock, who is the Commander of EUCOM, and David McKiernan, who is the top U.S. Army commander in Europe, asked that U.S. forces be maintained in Europe for budgetary and strategic reasons. Aside from the strategic reasons, the United States' maintenance of U.S. troop levels in Europe would signal to the world that the United States remains globally engaged, especially with its allies, Morrell said. Gates' announcement came as a shift in strategy because according to the withdrawal plan created by Gates' predecessor Donald Rumsfeld, U.S. troop levels would drop from the 62,000 that they were in 2005, to 24,000 by the end of 2008.
