Iran Press/America: The additions will bring the total number of active-duty troops on the border to 4,350.
The announcement is in line with what Acting Defense Secretary Pat Shanahan had said when he provided estimates for the next phase of a military mission that has grown in size and length, Fox News reported.
Meanwhile, US President Trump said last Wednesday that he would deploy as many as 15,000 military personnel along the US border with Mexico in response to caravans of Central American migrants making their way northward, doubling the figure Pentagon officials had earlier announced would be operating there.
Critics say the president’s decision to announce the deployments just days before the election is a political stunt designed to fire up a base concerned about immigration.
Members of Congress have question whether the border mission is distracting troops from their main work of fighting extremists abroad and training for combat. The first active-duty troops were sent to the border on about Oct. 30 for a mission that was to end Dec. 15. It has since been extended twice.
“What impact does it have to readiness to send several thousand troops down to the Southern border? It interrupts their training. It interrupts their dwell time,” Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., chairman of the House Armed Services Committee said at a hearing on Tuesday.
Vice Adm. Mike Gilday, the director of operations for the Joint Staff, told the panel that he does not believe military readiness has been significantly affected. He said some units have missed training opportunities because of the deployment and others have seen less time at home between deployments than the military likes to provide.
But he said there is an effort to rotate service members in and out of the mission every six to eight weeks in order to minimize any impact. 101/202/213
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Trump says as many as 15,000 troops may be deployed along US-Mexico border
