Rotation: U.S. in Huge Troop Movement With New Unit to Find Bombs:
"'It has started,' the officer said of the redeployment. 'This is the biggest move that we've done, I think, since World War II. We are moving 240,000-plus soldiers and their equipment.'"

Equipment of the First Cavalry Division, based at Fort Hood, Tex., and of the 25th Infantry Division, based in Hawaii, is at sea en route to Iraq. Troops of the 82nd Airborne Division, from Fort Bragg, N.C., left Wednesday and Thursday, the officer said.

No new deployment orders or call-ups were announced Thursday as the officer gave a status report on what he called "a major muscle movement" — bringing home about 123,000 personnel in Iraq and Kuwait, to be replaced by about 110,000. Most of the fresh troops are Army, with the Marine Corps sending 25,000, and smaller numbers from the Air Force and Navy.…

In addition to the Iraq redeployments, the military is rotating about 11,000 troops to Afghanistan to replace those there now, officials said.

Officers acknowledge that the Iraq rotation, to be completed by May, presents a risk for troops traveling across unfamiliar territory before reaching more secure bases, and in numbers presenting a target for insurgents. But commanders are planning to capitalize on the overlap, which offers a natural, if temporary, increase in troop strength.

The new force flowing into Iraq will be more heavily weighted toward reserve forces; 38 percent of those heading home from Iraq are reservists, while 46 percent of the fresh force is drawn from the reserves. Units sent to Iraq are also designed to be more mobile than those that captured Baghdad.

To counter the threat of home-made bombs, known as "improvised explosive devices," or I.E.D.'s, the Army devised a new unit called Task Force I.E.D. to find and destroy the weapons, and to train conventional units in specialized techniques. The task force, already on the ground in Iraq, will grow to about 300 soldiers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09MILI.html