The US Army enlisted a little more than 73,000 recruits for the 2005 fiscal year ending September 30, more than 8 percent short of its recruitment goal, officials said on Monday.

Army Secretary Francis Harvey told reporters that he was concerned about recruitment levels in the last 12 months, but denied there was any crisis.

"Is this a crisis? No, it's not a crisis," he said.

Harvey cited a number of issues for the shortfall, which included a robust economy offering young people job opportunities, the Iraq war and parents reluctant to let their children to join.

To deal with the problem, the Army had taken a series of measures, such as big financial incentives and a larger force of recruiters. The Army would increase its recruiters from the current 9,000 to 12,000, give soldiers having served four years a US$25,000 bonus for buying homes, aim recruitment efforts more at parents, and increase the advertising budget, he said.

In addition, the Army had decided to adopt Defense Department quality standards less demanding than those followed by the Army, said Harvey.

Richard Cody, the Army's deputy chief of staff, said at a separate news briefing that with the shortfall, the Army would not be able to increase in size to 502,000 as planned, and would remain at around 492,000 to 493,000.

The Army, nevertheless, remained on track to build 10 new combat brigades, he added.

The Army planned to move 40,000 soldiers from the Army bureaucracy and service schools to the operational units by 2007, according to Harvey.

The part-time Army Reserve and Army National Guard also missed their 2005 recruiting goals.

The Army provides the bulk of ground troops in the more-than-140,000-strong American forces currently deployed in Iraq, where more than 1,900 US soldiers have been killed since the war started in March 2003.
 
(Xinhua News Agency October 4, 2005)