The U.S. must avoid rash decisions to slash the size of the Army in
order to rein in the defense budget, the new chief of the Army said
Wednesday.
Army Gen. Ray Odierno, who was sworn in during a
ceremony at Fort Myer in Arlington, Va., told a packed auditorium of
family, friends and fellow soldiers that policymakers must be thoughtful
and understand the national security risks as they make difficult
fiscal decisions.
""We must avoid our historical pattern of drawing
down too fast and getting too small, especially since our record of
predicting the future frankly has not been very good," said Odierno, who
has served in the Army for 34 years.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta noted Odierno's
repeated deployments to Iraq, which totaled 50 months, calling him the
architect of the so-called surge.
Odierno was second in command to Gen. David Petraeus
from late 2006 to early 2008, as U.S. troops poured into Iraq to tamp
down the escalating violence. He took over as the top commander in
September 2008 and was responsible for the start of the U.S. withdrawal
and transfer of security to the Iraqis.
The 1976 West Point graduate replaces Gen. Martin E.
Dempsey as Army chief. Dempsey will become chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff when Adm. Mike Mullen retires at the end of the month.
Odierno and other top leaders praised Dempsey's
meteoric rise through the ranks and credited him with moving the Army to
shorter, nine-month deployments, rather than the yearlong tours
soldiers have been serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But they also joked about his short tenure as chief —
which lasted just 149 days before President Barack Obama tapped him for
the chairman's post.
"Some might say he just can't hold a job," quipped
Odierno. And Army Secretary John McHugh told Dempsey, "Thanks for
stopping by."
Later, Dempsey acknowledged that the Army will be
smaller in the years to come, but he said officials must find the right
balance of people, equipment, training and other services for the
soldiers and their families.
"We've got to decide what does the future security
environment demand and where will our priorities be," said Dempsey, who
will take over as chairman on Oct. 1. "We can't be everything to all
people everywhere. We have to prioritize our efforts."
He said there have been no decisions made on how big
the Army should be in 2020 or what programs should be on the chopping
block.
As for his brief tenure as Army chief, Dempsey, who
joined the service 37 years ago, told Odierno he wished that he could
have gotten a few more things done for him before leaving.
But Dempsey added that his mantra has always been:
"Don't count the days, make the days count."
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