Petraeus Says No Troop Increases For Iraq
General David Petraeus enduring his second day of grilling by Congress said today that he’s not willing to commit any further troops to Iraq even if the security situation were to deteriorate.
He also repeated his plans to continue reducing the number of U.S. forces in Iraq to pre-surge levels, or about 140,000 troops. That level should be reached by this summer at which point there will be a pause in troop reductions to allow for adjustments on the ground and a hard look at the security situation across the country.
The fact that Petraeus is unwilling to even leave open the possibility for troop increases speaks to just how close to tapped out our troop rotation situation is. With more troops needed in Afghanistan, there simply isn’t anymore troops available to rotate through Iraq again even if we wanted to.
President Bush is also supposed to announce plans to cut the combat tours of active-duty soldiers from 15 months to 12 months. The reduced deployments will not apply—at least initially—to any soldiers currently serving in Iraq, unless conditions improve to the point that commanders believe some could go home early.
-Chris Jones
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