Sixteen of some 3,000 troops failed to show up at airports in Baltimore and Germany for return flights to the Persian Gulf region, said Army spokesman Joe Burlas. None has been declared "absent without leave" as officials try to sort out the cases.
Some of the problem was a result of the newness of the program Burlas said, adding that numbers kept changing Tuesday and it was impossible to gauge the size of the problem.
Officials found some had received an extension on their leave from their unit commander at home rather than their commander in Iraq, or had informed commanders they'd be delayed but failed to phone proper officials at the airports, and so on, Burlas said.
"The vast majority ... have already been tracked back to guys who missed planes, missed connections — one man's house burned down," said Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "So there are reasons why they didn't return."
A statement from the U.S. Central Command called the number minuscule.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it won't affect the leave program.
Officials said they didn't immediately have statistics on the number of troops normally AWOL. Such cases typically increase in times of conflict. Experts inside and outside the services predicted before the program started that some troops would simply not return to the hot, often dirty and dangerous work of occupying Iraq.