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Post-surge troops stay in Iraq
26/02/2008 12:20 - (SA)
Washington - About 8 000 more US troops will be on the ground in Iraq when the US troop build-up ends in July than there were when it began in January 2007, a senior general said on Monday.
Lieutenant General Carter Ham, operations chief for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that by July the troop total is likely to be 140 000. That compares with 132 000 when President George W Bush approved orders to send an additional five Army brigades to Iraq to improve security and avert civil war.
Representative Nancy Pelosi, as speaker of the US House of Representatives the senior Democrat in Washington, said the announcement showed that Bush's troop build-up was not a temporary measure as it had been advertised. Democrats said when they regained control of Congress in the November 2006 elections that they would force Bush to end the war but have failed to achieve that.
"As we approach the fifth anniversary of the Iraq war, Americans continue to demand a new direction in Iraq and reject a continuation of the president's plan for a 10-year, trillion-dollar war in Iraq," Pelosi said.
Afghanistan
Ham also announced that the Pentagon believes US force levels in Afghanistan will stand at 32 000 in late summer, up from about 28 000 currently. The current total is the highest since the war began in October 2001, and another 3 200 US Marines are to deploy to Afghanistan in a few months.
It had been widely expected that some support troops sent to Iraq with the five extra brigades would need to remain, even after July. But until now it had not been clear what their numbers would be.
Ham stressed that his projected number of 140 000 is subject to change depending on security conditions, but it is the first time the Pentagon has publicly estimated what the total will be.
About 158 000 US troops currently are in Iraq.
One reason for keeping a higher number of US security forces is that the plan for transitioning responsibility for detention facilities to the Iraqi government "has not progressed as rapidly as we would like," Ham said. "So there is a need to have the (American) force sustained."
- AP
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