The move comes as a surprise to some Tampa Bay leaders who had received no notice of the decision by Adm. William Fallon, the CentCom chief who abruptly announced his resignation on Tuesday.
It is probably one of the largest staff reductions in the command's 25-year history and is a striking cut seldom seen in crucial military commands at a time of war.
A CentCom spokesman said the cuts have been under way for months and could be completed by May. They are part of a staff reassessment ordered by Fallon last June, three months after he took the CentCom helm.
They were not ordered by the Pentagon and are not the result of any budget shortfall, CentCom said.
"The boss asked us to look for ways to ensure we were using our human resources to the best efficiency," said Navy Capt. James Graybeal, a CentCom spokesman. "The reductions do not hamper the ability to do our jobs" or the war effort.
Some leading military analysts applauded Fallon's reductions, saying military commands have been top heavy since the days of Ulysses S. Grant.
"It's less interference for tactical units in the field," said Winslow Wheeler, director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center for Defense Information, a Washington think tank.
"The bozos 10,000 miles away pushing pins in a map that have nothing to do with reality — the fewer of those, the better," he said.