Anchorage Daily News

The United States needs to grow a bigger Army and Marine Corps, probably shrink its Air Force and equip a military able to respond quickly to threats in many parts of the world for years to come, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told a crowd of about 700 service people here Friday.

Gen. Peter Pace, the first Marine to head the Joint Chiefs, told the crowd of mostly soldiers and airmen in an Elmendorf Air Force Base movie theater that he "came a long way to say basically two words to you: thank you."

"These (Alaska) commands are essential to the health of our nation, and you all know that."

Pace acknowledged disappointment that the U.S. finds itself sending more troops to Iraq.

"Had I stood in front of you ... a year ago," he said, "I would have looked you in the eye and told you I believe we would have been able to come down significantly in size in Iraq between January in '06 and December in '06."

That belief was based on plans to equip and train the Iraqi Army and police last year, "which we did do ... and that we'd be able to turn over more responsibility to them for their own security, which we did not do," Pace said. The bombing of a Shiite mosque in Samarra a year ago generated "enormous strife" and gets a lot of the blame for that, he said.

Pace delivered a few brief remarks, then threw the floor open to questions for about 45 minutes. There were a few softballs, but more were pointed:

• "When you say that you're going to bulk up the Army and Marines, does that mean that you're also going to lower the time that we're over there when we deploy?"

• About Prime Minister Tony Blair's announcement that Great Britain is bringing some troops home because of Iraqi successes there, "Is that truly an honest assessment, or is that a political move that's going to require more effort on our part?"

• How is the government going to be successful in recruiting so many more soldiers and Marines when the war is so unpopular with the public?

• What could he do about a lack of dental care in Alaska that snarls attempts to mobilize National Guardsmen who are ready and want to deploy to Iraq but can't because they can't get their teeth fixed? Soldiers have their teeth in good enough shape to last a year without additional care.

Pace didn't have answers to all the questions, and the one about dental care from Col. Mike Bridges, deputy commander of the 207th Infantry Brigade, was one of them. Pace told an aide to make notes and promised to look into the dental care problem when he gets back to Washington.

The question about shorter deployments came from a soldier. Pace said increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps should both shorten the length of overseas tours and lengthen the time soldiers and Marines get to stay on American soil between deployments.

Pace said he had a long conversation with his counterpart in Great Britain before the pull-down of British forces was announced. He said he agrees with it but understands why some wonder about President Bush's plan to send another 21,500 American troops to Baghdad while the British pull troops out of Iraq.

"And the answer is, there are 18 provinces (in Iraq) and 14 of them are in pretty good shape. ... The logic is that in that province, things are going well enough to be able to reduce forces."

Pace didn't directly answer the question about boosting recruitment during an unpopular war. He said the support of parents, teachers and community leaders is important to a healthy military, and he noted that, unlike the Vietnam era, even Americans critical of the war in Iraq recognize and celebrate the soldiers, Marines and airmen who are fighting it.

"I believe the way the nation has been showing its appreciation is that regardless of whether an individual is for or against what we're doing in Iraq ... when your troops come home -- you all come home --the communities open their arms to you and thank you for your service to the nation."

Iraq is a new kind of theater for the U.S. military, one captain noted.

"We're operating in a few countries now where religious or ethnic or tribal allegiances are older and sometimes run deeper than national identities, and in a lot of cases our forces are partnered with security forces that are dominated by people from one of those ethnic, tribal or religious groups," he said. "How can we reconcile those allegiances, sir?"

"The answer to the problems in Iraq and the answer to the problems in Afghanistan are Iraqi answer and Afghani answers," Pace said. "We can help, but we are not going to be able to understand all the nuances of the tribal problems they have in those countries. ...

"We should not be looking to ourselves to reconcile it," he went on. It's up to Iraqi and Afghani leaders to reconcile their differences and "stop killing each other and love their kids more than they hate each other."

Daily News reporter Don Hunter can be reached at dhunter@adn.com.