WASHINGTON – Even with cutbacks promised by President Bush, the United States may wind up with thousands more troops in Iraq next summer than before the buildup of forces he ordered in January.
Bush approved the redeployment of five Army combat brigades and three Marine contingents between now and July 2008, but that does not account for thousands of support forces – including military police and an Army combat aviation brigade – that were sent as “enablers” and that apparently will stay longer.
For example, the headquarters staff of the 3rd Infantry Division, commanded by Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, was sent in April to establish a new operational command area south and southeast of Baghdad. They were not counted among the original “surge” forces, and it's not clear how long they will remain.
About 169,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq – the highest total of the war.
When Bush announced a buildup last January as the centerpiece of a new war strategy, 130,000 to 135,000 troops were in Iraq.
In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del, chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called administration officials “phonies” for suggesting the modest troop withdrawal is the result of gains made in Iraq, rather than the reality that the military is stretched too thin.
Biden, who is seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, added: “There is no plan to win. No plan how to leave. No plan how to end this. It's just a plan to keep . . . all the venom from spilling out over the region, and we're using somewhere between 160,000 to 130,000 troops to do that.”
When Petraeus delivered his much anticipated Iraq report to Congress on Monday, he said he had recommended to Bush that they send home the Army and Marine forces that were part of the buildup Bush announced in January.
Petraeus did not mention a troop reduction total, but the impression by many in Congress was that it was equivalent to the approximately 30,000 in the buildup.
In an interview Thursday, Petraeus suggested the number would be less than 30,000 but he would not provide a specific figure.
He said his staff was working out redeployment details.
It appears the reduction will be closer to 25,000, possibly less.
Petraeus cited the example of about 2,000 military police sent to Iraq last spring to help manage the extra detainees captured in stepped-up U.S. offensives in Baghdad and elsewhere.
Some of those probably would remain after the extra combat units are withdrawn because detainee control will remain a challenge, he said.
He gave other, largely overlooked examples during his congressional testimony. In an exchange Monday with House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, D-Mo., he said other forces were brought to Iraq this year for a variety of tasks.
They include an unspecified number of personnel associated with work on countering the insurgents' weapon of choice, the roadside bomb, Petraeus said. He also mentioned, without elaboration, that additional “intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance assets” were added to the force. He did not say how many would be brought home as the “surge” winds down; he described them as resources and people that “we would have wanted regardless of whether we were surging or not.”
