‘Stop-Loss’ Will All but End by 2011, Gates Says

‘Stop-Loss’ Will All but End by 2011, Gates Says Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Wednesday that, Christmas wreathover two years, he would all but eliminate an unpopular practice that has prevented tens of thousands of active-duty soldiers and reservists from leaving military service on time if they were scheduled to deploy to Iraq or Afghanistan.

More than 13,000 soldiers remain unable to exit the military under the policy, known as stop-loss, which was put in effect after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and then expanded in 2004 as the Army struggled to sustain two large war efforts.

The policy has been intensely unpopular with troops and their families, some of whom have denounced it as a back-door draft. Some 120,000 soldiers have been affected by stop-loss in its various forms since 2001, Army officials said Wednesday, a practice that Mr. Gates said had amounted to “breaking faith” with those in uniform.

With the strain on the Army projected to ease in the years ahead, Mr. Gates announced a timetable that would cut in half by June 2010 the number of troops affected by stop-loss, with the practice all but eliminated by March 2011.

He said he was able to take the step now because of plans to reduce troop levels in Iraq more quickly than they are increased in Afghanistan and because of an enlargement that has increased the size of the active-duty Army to more than 547,000 troops, a level it had not been projected to reach until 2012.

The number of troops affected by stop-loss increased sharply under the troop increase for Iraq that President George W. Bush ordered in early 2007. Mr. Gates cautioned that “scores,” but not thousands, of soldiers might continue to be affected by the policy after March 2011 if they had skills that were particularly important to the war effort.

According to Pentagon statistics, 13,200 people are now under stop-loss orders: 4,458 in the Army National Guard, 1,452 in the Army Reserve and the rest from the active component. The Army said Wednesday that it would provide additional pay of $500 a month to those currently affected by the policy, retroactive to last October. Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the Army deputy chief of staff for personnel, said that the policy had been “a vital tool” for successfully meeting the needs of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, but that Army leaders realized it Christmas wreath“has caused hardship on soldiers and families.”