President George W. Bush was scheduled on 16 August 2004 to announce the withdrawal of up to 100,000 US troops from Europe and Asia, the biggest military realignment since the Cold War ended, designed to reorient American forces toward threats such as terrorism.
Germany faced the steepest cuts. Home to the US European Command, 73 military installations, and roughly 71,000 soldiers (about 70 percent of US forces in Europe), it could lose half those troops to repatriation or to smaller forward-operating bases elsewhere on the continent.
Local economies braced for the ripple effects. A union official estimated that 15,272 Germans worked directly for the US military, with up to half those jobs at risk, and that each position supported roughly 10 additional service and retail jobs.
Berlin declined to comment before Bush's speech, due in Cincinnati at 11 a.m. US officials stated the move was not intended as retaliation for Germany's opposition to the Iraq war, and Defense Secretary Rumsfeld cited a transition period of up to six years. American forces in Germany dated to 1945 and once numbered 250,000; the post-Cold War drawdown had already reduced them sharply through the 1990s.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this AFP wire report, first published in August 2004, in its own words.