![\"Driscoll](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/20260515_HASC_0185.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\t\t<\/p>\n
\n\t\t\t\tDan Driscoll, left, the secretary of the Army, and Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the acting Army chief of staff, prepare to testify during a House Armed Services committee hearing on Friday, May 15, 2026, in Washington. (Eric Kayne\/Stars and Stripes)
\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 The Army\u2019s top officer told frustrated lawmakers Friday that the order to cancel an Army brigade deployment to Poland<\/a> came within the last two weeks, as equipment was in transit and advance elements of the brigade were already overseas.<\/p>\n Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the acting chief of staff of the Army, said the decision to stop the deployment came after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth\u2019s office directed Air Force Gen. Alexus G. Grynkewich, the head of European Command, to reduce troop levels in Europe.
<\/p>\n The decision was \u201crelatively recent,\u201d LaNeve said, and came \u201cprobably within the last two weeks.\u201d
<\/p>\n LaNeve\u2019s testimony to the House Armed Services Committee appeared to contradict the Pentagon\u2019s statement that the move this week to scrap the deployment of 4,000 soldiers from the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Cavalry Division was \u201cnot an unexpected, last-minute decision.\u201d
<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t see how that statement can be true,\u201d said Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga. <\/p>\n Republicans and Democrats sharply criticized the decision as LaNeve and Army Secretary Dan Driscoll appeared before the committee to testify on the Army\u2019s budget but found themselves repeatedly questioned on the canceled deployment.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy? I can\u2019t get an answer to that question,\u201d said Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, the top Democrat on the panel. \u201cIf there\u2019s some strategy behind it, then you guys ought to know, and you ought to be able to communicate it to us.\u201d <\/p>\n Driscoll did not explain the move but said conversations about force structure are going on \u201cthroughout the year, every single year,\u201d and the Army \u201cis always ready to move people and things based off combatant commander and secretary of war preferences.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cSo this is not that unusual,\u201d he said.
<\/p>\n But the abruptness of the canceled deployment to Poland, a close NATO ally, caught lawmakers by surprise.<\/p>\n Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., called the decision \u201creprehensible\u201d and said the way it was handled had blindsided Poland, sent a \u201cterrible message\u201d to Russia and allies and defied Congress, which last year put limits on how much the Pentagon can unilaterally reduce troop levels in Europe.
<\/p>\n \u201cI think this committee, under the chairman and ranking member, we\u2019ve got to hold the secretary accountable for this decision,\u201d Bacon said. \u201cIt\u2019s wrong.\u201d
<\/p>\n The chairman of the committee, Republican Mike Rogers of Alabama, did not say if the panel would take action but also expressed irritation with the Pentagon\u2019s lack of notification to lawmakers.
<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on here,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not happy with what\u2019s being talked about, particularly since there\u2019s been no statutory consultation with us.\u201c<\/p>\n The decision follows a Pentagon announcement this month that about 5,000 American troops will be withdrawn from Germany<\/a> over the next six to 12 months. President Donald Trump has said the cuts will go \u201ca lot further than 5,000\u201d and threatened to also pull troops from Italy and Spain<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dan Driscoll, left, the secretary of the Army, and Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the acting Army chief of staff,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[6127,5325,6126,6132,6128,6131,6130,6124,6125,9,6129],"class_list":["post-6886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-poland","tag-000-troops-withdrawn-from-germany","tag-2nd-armored-brigade-combat-team-1st-cavalry-division","tag-6126","tag-army-secretary-dan-driscoll","tag-army-tank-brigade-poland","tag-gen-christopher-laneve-acting-army-chief-of-staff","tag-hegseth-troops-europe","tag-lawmakers-criticize-canceled-poland-deployment","tag-pentagon-withrawal-of-troops-europe","tag-poland","tag-trump-troops-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/poland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}