Topic: U.S. Troop Increase In Iraq May Be Smaller Than Expected

Team Infidel

Miami Herald
January 4, 2007
President Bush is considering a smaller-than-expected increase in U.S. troops for Iraq, officials said.
By Warren P. Strobel and Nancy A. Youssef
WASHINGTON - President Bush plans to order extra U.S. troops to Iraq as part of a new push to secure Baghdad, but in smaller numbers than previously reported, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
The president, who is completing a lengthy review of Iraq policy, is considering dispatching three to four U.S. combat brigades to Iraq, or no more than 15,000 to 20,000 U.S. troops, the officials said. Bush is expected to announce his decision next week.
Typically, a combat brigade comprises about 3,500 combat troops and more than 1,000 support personnel.
''Instead of a surge, it is a bump,'' said a State Department official. He spoke on condition of anonymity, because Bush hasn't yet unveiled details of what the White House is calling a ''new way forward'' in Iraq.
Bush had been considering proposals to send a much larger contingent into Baghdad -- as many as 30,000-40,000 soldiers and Marines.
Some experts doubt that the smaller deployment would be sufficient to halt Iraq's escalating conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.
Details of Bush's Iraq strategy are still being finalized and could change.
But the smaller troop increase appears to reflect the real-world constraints the president faces as he tries to persuade the American public that victory is still possible in Iraq.
Congressional Democrats, who formally take power today on Capitol Hill, widely oppose any increase in the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops now in Iraq.
Many want Bush to present a plan for withdrawing those troops.
Meanwhile, the U.S. military has been stretched by four years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, meaning there are few active-duty combat units available for deployment.
To marshal even 15,000 to 20,000 additional troops, Bush would have to accelerate the return of some units to the battlefield, cutting their time to train between deployments.
Advocates of a ''surge'' in U.S. troop levels have argued that to be effective in halting the violence, the United States would have to send a significant number of troops for an extended period of time.
The State Department official said that, even at this late juncture, administration officials are debating what the extra troops would do.

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