WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has informed an additional 35,000 soldiers that they are likely to be heading to Iraq by December, a move that will allow the army to maintain heightened U.S. troop levels into next year.
Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that the decision to alert the 10 army brigades scheduled to deploy between August and December did not mean that the Bush administration had decided to extend the current reinforcement, a buildup of about 30,000 troops that is expected to be completed in June. A decision on that issue will be made in September, officials said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other officials have made clear that reversing the troop buildup was among the steps that could be taken by the end of the summer if the Iraqi government failed to make progress on legislation aimed at achieving reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite Arabs.
At the same time, some military officials have argued privately that it will be necessary to prolong the higher troop levels into next year in order to have any permanent effect on security.
Overall American force levels in Iraq will reach close to 160,000 when all the additional units ordered to Iraq by President George W. Bush arrive this summer. Only three of the five additional army brigades ordered to Iraq are now in place, with the final two scheduled to arrive over the next two months.
Whitman said a reduction of that force later this year remained a possibility. The Pentagon “has been very clear that a decision about the duration of the surge will depend on conditions on the ground,” he said.
The replacement troops announced Tuesday would go to Iraq under the new Pentagon policy of sending units for 15 months at a time, though Whitman added that shorter tours were also possible if security conditions improved.
A brigade has about 3,500 soldiers.
Bush vetoed an effort this month by the Democratic-controlled Congress to force the beginning of a phased withdrawal of U.S. forces beginning as early as Oct. 1. But his new strategy of sending more troops has intensified the strain on the army, leaving few combat-ready units in reserve and forcing the army to turn increasingly to National Guard forces.
If the higher troop levels continue into 2008, the next combat units sent to Iraq are likely to be from the National Guard, officials have said.
The army also said that close to 1,000 more support troops from the U.S. Army Reserve would deploy in August.
[International Herald Tribune]
