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US military plans to maintain current troop levels in Iraq
Washington (AFP) Jul 24, 2006 The US military plans to maintain US forces in Iraq at current levels even as it concentrates more troops in Baghdad to deal with rising violence, a Pentagon spokesman said Monday. US President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki are expected to take up the deteriorating security conditions in Baghdad and its implications when they meet here Tuesday. The meeting comes amid growing recognition that a six-week-old security crackdown has failed to stem the onslaught of massacres, kidnappings and bombings in the Baghdad area, a key goal of Maliki's new government. US commanders are planning to increase the number of US troops in Baghdad, but plans now call for bringing them in from other parts of the country rather than from outside Iraq. Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said additional units will be identified to replace units coming home during a rotation of US forces that begins in September, but overall force levels are expected to remain roughly the same. "The planning effort will reflect force levels consistent with what we have right now," Whitman said. The United States currently has about 127,000 troops in Iraq. So far, only 12 combat brigades have been identified to replace the 14 combat brigades currently in Iraq, suggesting that two more combat brigades remain to be identified. "We're not done naming units for the '06-'08 rotation," Whitman told reporters. In June, General George Casey, the US commander in Iraq, acknowledged that the sectarian violence has complicated the security situation. But he said he was still confident that the size of the force could be brought down gradually by the end of the year. Even those gradual cuts now appear in doubt. A brigade from the 1st Infantry Division whose deployment to Iraq had been put on hold was given its deployment orders on July 16, Whitman said. Two other brigades whose deployment had been slowed in anticipation of possible cuts are back on the rotation schedule, army officials said. "Right now everything is proceeding according to the rotation," said an army official, who asked not to be identified. Community Email This Article Comment On This Article Related Links Nuclear Space Technology at Space-Travel.com
Senior Iraqi army officer criticizes US security approach
Wahsington (AFP) Jul 24, 2006 A top Iraqi military officer Monday drew a dark picture of the security situation in his war-torn country while on a visit to Washington and said the current US strategy lacked vision and had failed. |
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