The U.S. Army's top general said Wednesday he is making plans based on the possibility that the Army will be required to keep tens of thousands of soldiers in Iraq through 2006.

Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, told the House Armed Services Committee of the United States that "for planning purposes" he has ordered his staff to consider how the Army would replace the force that is now rotating into Iraq with another force of similar size in 2005 — and again in 2006.

Theater Support Commander General Michael Diamond (L) accepts a gift from Chairman of the Kuwait Scientific Center Sheikh Fahad Yousef Al-Sabah at Camp Arifjan, in southern Kuwait January 28, 2004. Over 200 young Kuwaiti girls learned from the experiences of United States female soldiers during a career day organized in coordination with the U.S. military and Kuwait Scientific Center. [Agencies]

Stretched by commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea and the Balkans, the Army has used emergency authority to go beyond the limit set by US Congress on the number of soldiers who can be in uniform, Schoomaker said.

He said the Army now is about 11,000 soldiers above the 482,400 limit and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has authorized the service to temporarily exceed the limit by as much as 30,000.

The decision about when to end the U.S. military presence in Iraq will be made by US President Bush and his national security aides, in consultation with American commanders in Iraq. As a service chief, Schoomaker's role is to ensure that soldiers are trained and equipped for any mission the president requires.

Of the 105,000 troops going to Iraq this winter and spring to replace the 130,000 who have been there since the start of the war, about 80,000 are Army soldiers. The replacement force, which includes 25,000 Marines, is scheduled to spend a full year in Iraq.

Army officials have said that planning for the 2005 rotation of forces into Iraq will begin in February.

Schoomaker said he was opposed to Congress passing legislation to permanently expand the size of the Army, mainly because it would be too costly.

"I'm adamant that that is not the way to go," the Army chief said.

Even while the Iraq war continues, the Pentagon is planning a new offensive in the two-year-old Afghanistan campaign to try to stop remnants of the Taliban regime and the al-Qaida terrorist network, officials said Wednesday.

Orders have been issued to prepare equipment and supplies, though the operation will not necessarily require additional troops in the region, where about 11,000 Americans are still deployed, a defense official said on condition of anonymity.

Schoomaker said the Army is enjoying success in recruiting new soldiers.

"There are more people lining up to come in than we've ever had, and the quality of those people is higher than it's ever been, and there's no indication right now that that's not going to continue," he said.

Members of the House panel expressed surprise that Rumsfeld had agreed that the Army needed as many as 30,000 more soldiers, since he has publicly opposed a legislative move to expand the service.

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher, D-Calif., said it sounded as if Rumsfeld was accomplishing through the use of his own executive powers the troop increase that he had resisted on Capitol Hill.

Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said he was concerned that the requirement for large numbers of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan may break the Army.

"This does not mean we should pull back from our commitments," Skelton said. "We can't unring the bell. We're there. We've got to win. We've got to stabilize that country," he said of Iraq. "We cannot afford that to evolve into a civil war."

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