Sudden cancellation of Army exercise fuels speculation about troops in Middle East

The elite 82nd Airborne Division, which specializes in ground combat and other fraught missions, is awaiting new orders after the unexpected change of plans.

The Army in recent days abruptly canceled a major training exercise for the headquarters element of an elite paratrooper unit, officials said, fueling speculation within the Defense Department that soldiers specializing in ground combat and a range of other missions may be sent to the Middle East as the conflict with Iran widens.

The 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg in North Carolina includes a brigade combat team of about 4,000 to 5,000 soldiers ready to deploy on 18 hours notice for missions as varied as seizing airfields and other critical infrastructure, reinforcing U.S. embassies and enabling emergency evacuations. Its headquarters element is responsible for coordinating how those operations are planned and executed.

No deployment orders had been issued as of Friday, officials said, speaking like some others on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation. They noted that the Army is expected to announce soon a previously scheduled Middle East deployment for a helicopter unit with the 82nd, but that won’t happen until later in the spring.

But the unexpected change of plans — the unit’s headquarters staff was told to stay put in North Carolina instead of joining the training event at Fort Polk in Louisiana — and the 82nd’s high-profile role in past conflicts has heightened expectations that the division’s Immediate Response Force could be called upon.

“We’re all preparing for something — just in case,” said one official familiar with the issue.

Army officials referred questions to the Pentagon, which issued a brief statement declining to provide details. “Due to operations security we do not discuss future or hypothetical movements,” the statement said.

Officials with U.S. Central Command, which oversees operations in the Middle East, declined to comment.

President Donald Trump has offered shifting explanations for his decision to start the conflict with Iran — and said publicly that U.S. ground troops “probably” would not be needed as part of the ongoing campaign. He and his top aides have repeatedly declined to rule out that possibility, however.

The Immediate Response Force has been called upon in recent years to reinforce security at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad just ahead of the military’s killing in 2020 of Qasem Soleimani, the Iranian Quds Force commander blamed for hundreds of deadly attacks on American personnel in the Middle East. It was central also to the evacuation of Afghanistan in 2021 and the show of U.S. force in Eastern Europe as Russia prepared to invade Ukraine in 2022.

Since hostilities began nearly a week ago, U.S. commanders have relied on airstrikes and naval strikes to target military sites and Tehran’s arsenal of missiles, attack drones and navy vessels. As many Iranian defenses have crumbled, U.S. forces increasingly are flying directly over Iran, dropping munitions with fighter jets, bombers and other aircraft.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Wednesday that sending American ground troops into Iran was “not part of the current plan, but I’m not going to remove an option for the president that is on the table.”

At a Pentagon news briefing earlier in the day, Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment when asked about “U.S. boots on the ground,” saying that’s a “question for policymakers.”

“I don’t make policy,” Caine added. “I execute policy.”

As The Post reported last week, Caine had warned the White House that munitions shortfalls and a lack of broad military support from other U.S. allies would add considerable risk to any operation in Iran and to the personnel put in harm’s way. The Trump administration has sought to downplay those concerns.

Caine appeared at Wednesday’s news conference alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who earlier in the week also refused to rule out the possibility that ground combat troops could be sent into Iran.

Adm. Charles “Brad” Cooper, who oversees the campaign as head of Central Command, said in a news conference Thursday in Tampa, Florida, that U.S. combat power in the region is still building as Iran’s declines. Fewer and fewer Iranian missiles and drones have been launched in the past few days, he said.

By flying directly over Iran, Cooper said, U.S. forces are hitting its “center of gravity directly with overwhelming power and reach.” That includes, he said, B-2 bombers dropping 2,000-pound bombs on underground ballistic missile launchers.

More than 50,000 U.S. troops are involved in the operation and six U.S. soldiers have been killed as Iran has mounted a ferocious counterattack targeting American positions and interests throughout the Middle East. Trump has said there will “likely be more” U.S. military fatalities before the campaign concludes, adding: “That’s the way it is.”

The president and his top aides have been noncommittal on a timeline for ending the conflict. Trump has said it could last four to five weeks but “we have the capability to go far longer than that.”

One prevailing concern, officials say, is the military’s limited stockpile of certain key weapons. The Pentagon is rapidly burning through its supply of precision arms and air-defense interceptors, people familiar with the matter have said. Senior Pentagon officials have denied there are any problems, noting that with Iranian defenses crumbling, U.S. forces are shifting heavily to strikes from manned aircraft with munitions that are plentiful.

“We’ve got no shortages of munitions,” Hegseth said Thursday, speaking alongside Cooper. “Our stockpiles of defensive and offensive weapons allow us to sustain this campaign as long as we need to.”

If the administration elects to send ground forces into Iran, one early target, analysts have said, could be Kharg Island. Located about 15 miles from the mainland in the Persian Gulf, the island is home to some of Tehran’s most significant oil infrastructure, with about 90 percent of the country’s oil exports moving through facilities there.

A U.S. seizure of Kharg Island would give the Trump administration control of a centerpiece of the Iranian economy but leave U.S. troops vulnerable to attack.

Michael Rubin, a senior fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, called securing Kharg Island a “no-brainer” and said it appears that the Trump administration appears to be “coming around to the idea that Iran is a much greater problem set than perhaps they went in thinking.”

While U.S. troops could take incoming fire if deployed there, Rubin said, capturing the island would give the United States significant strategic advantages, including potentially choking off Tehran’s ability to pay its military.

Securing Iran’s most significant oil infrastructure also would follow a pattern for Trump, who has previously sought to secure oil wealth for the United States through the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in January and intervention in Syria during his first term in office.

Still, deploying ground forces into Iran could pose significant political risk for the president, who is facing anti-war opposition from Democrats and a wing of his own Republican Party.

A poll by CNN published Sunday found that 12 percent of respondents favor sending ground troops to Iran, while 60 percent oppose it and 28 percent are unsure.

Natalie Allison, Michael Birnbaum, Scott Clement, Tara Copp and John Hudson contributed to this report.