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December 16th,
2006 - Pentagon To Move Troops Into Kuwait |
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Pentagon To Move Troops Into
Kuwait CBS News December 16, 2006 Washington - A 3,500-man brigade
from the 82nd Airborne Division will be sent to Kuwait soon after the
holidays, CBS News correspondent David Martin reports. The troops would be
available immediately should President Bush order a surge into Iraq. Pentagon
officials expect incoming Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to approve the
request after he takes over from Donald Rumsfeld on Monday, Martin reports. The 2nd Brigade, made up of
roughly 3,500 troops, is based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and would be deployed in
Iraq early next year if needed, a senior Defense Department official told the
Associated Press. The move would be part of an effort to boost the number of
U.S. troops in Iraq for a short time, the official said. The plan was first
reported by CBS News. Senior administration officials
say the option of a major surge in troop strength is gaining ground as part
of the administration's strategy review, The New York Times reported on its
Web site Friday night. Military planners and budget analysts have been asked
to provide President Bush with options for increasing U.S. forces in Iraq by
20,000 or more, the newspaper reported. In a half-hour video
conference with Bush on Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki outlined
plans for the national reconciliation conference taking place in Baghdad on
Saturday. Al-Maliki cited the desire of many people in Iraq for a larger core
of Iraqi political leaders to come together for the common objective of
stabilizing the country and promoting the rule of law, National Security
Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe said in describing the conversation. Al-Maliki also talked with
Bush about providing greater security, in particular in Baghdad, by going
after all sources of violence, including insurgents and militias, Johndroe
said. Bush reiterated his support for al-Maliki and said he was encouraged by
the meetings he had recently with Iraq's Sunni vice president, Tariq
al-Hashemi, and with the leader of the largest Shiite bloc in Iraq's parliament,
Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim. In assessing the state of
the war in Iraq, Bush has been meeting this week with top generals and other
advisers. The military options being considered include an increased effort
to train and equip Iraqi forces. In other developments: At the national
reconciliation conference convened by the Iraqi government on Saturday,
al-Maliki stressed that the national army has "opened its doors" to
former members of Saddam Hussein's army as the government seeks help in
curbing the rampant violence in the country. Al-Maliki also offered an
olive branch to former members of Saddam's outlawed Baath Party not found to
be involved in crimes against Iraqis. His comments were aimed at
rallying ethnic, religious and political groups around a common strategy for
handling Iraq's problems. But the gathering was
overshadowed by rising sectarian tensions and political divisions as
al-Maliki's 7-month-old government faces growing dissent by coalition
partners, including Shiite allies like radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Al-Sadr's bloc and the Sunni National Association of Muslim Scholars said
they would not attend the gathering. Al-Maliki reached out to the
officers and soldiers who lost their posts after the U.S.-led invasion that
ousted Saddam nearly four years ago. He imposed few conditions on the return
of former military personnel, only cautioning that those allowed to serve in
the new army should be loyal to the country and conduct themselves
professionally. "The new Iraqi army has
opened its doors for members of the former army, officers and soldiers, and
the national unity government is prepared to absorb those who have the desire
to serve the nation," al-Maliki said. He said the government
needed "their energies, expertise and skills in order to complete the
building of our armed forces." Former troops already have
the option of joining the army, but the outreach and pension offer was an
apparent concession to a long-standing demand by Sunni Arab politicians who
argue that the neglect of former army soldiers was spreading discontent and
pushing them into the arms of the insurgency. The two-day conference is
being held at the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad, a large swath of
land that's home to the Iraqi government offices as well as the U.S. and
British embassies. Nasir al-Ani, a spokesman for the conference, said
"very few" of the opposition leaders living in exile and invited to
attend showed up. Meanwhile, the commander of
U.S. forces in the strife-ridden Iraqi province of Diyala said Friday that
tribal leaders and some political groups in the province are turning to
terrorists and insurgents for protection rather than trust Iraqi soldiers and
police. "This sort of unity only
worsens the sectarian divide and encourages further violence," said Col.
David Sutherland, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. He
spoke to reporters at the Pentagon by a satellite video connection from his
headquarters near the city of Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad. "Public perceptions of
corruption, inequity and fear are the driving force behind support to
terrorist organizations," Sutherland added. "These are not new
problems in Iraq but problems that developed out of a desire for personal and
financial gain." Sutherland said he is trying
to turn that around by putting Iraqi police through more rigorous training,
placing more U.S. advisers in the Iraqi army and police units and through
Iraqi efforts to recruit a police and army force that better reflects the
sectarian makeup of Diyala, which is about 55 percent Sunni, 30 percent
Shiite and 15 percent Kurd. Currently, the Iraqi
security forces in Diyala are predominantly Shiite, he said. Sutherland said he is
working out arrangements to expand the use of U.S. adviser teams with Iraqi
security forces, reflecting the view of senior U.S. commanders that such an
expansion can speed the development of competent Iraqi forces. The Army is considering ways
it can speed up the creation of two additional combat brigades - a move
intended to expand the pool of active-duty combat brigades in order to
relieve some of the strain on the Army from large-scale deployments to Iraq. Under the plan being
developed, the new brigades could be formed next year and be ready to be sent
to Iraq in 2008, defense officials told The Associated Press. The officials
spoke on condition of anonymity because the plans were not final. The Army's chief of staff,
Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, told a commission Thursday that he wants to
increase the half-million-member force beyond the 30,000 troops authorized in
recent years. And he warned that the Army "will break" without
thousands more active duty troops and greater use of the reserves. © 2006 CBS Broadcasting Inc.
All Rights Reserved. External link: http://cbs4denver.com/topstories/topstories_story_349213033.html Options Sought for Surge in
U.S. Troops to Stabilize Iraq By David E. Sanger & Michael R. Gordon New York Times December 16, 2006 Washington, Dec. 15 -
Military planners and White House budget analysts have been asked to provide
President Bush with options for increasing American forces in Iraq by 20,000 or
more. The request indicates that the option of a major “surge” in troop
strength is gaining ground as part of a White House strategy review, senior
administration officials said Friday. Discussion of increasing the
number of American troops, at least temporarily, has coursed through
Washington for two months, as a possible way to reverse the deteriorating
security situation in Baghdad. But the decision to ask the Joint Chiefs of
Staff to specify where the additional forces could be found among overstretched
Army, Marine and National Guard units, and to seek a cost estimate from the
White House Office of Management and Budget, signifies a turn in the debate. Officials said that the
options being considered included the deployment of upwards of 50,000 additional
troops, but that the political, training and recruiting obstacles to an
increase larger than 20,000 to 30,000 troops would be prohibitive. At present, only about
17,000 American soldiers are actively involved in the effort to secure
Baghdad, so even the low end of the proposals being considered by military
and budget officials could more than double the size of that force. If
adopted, such an increase would be a major departure from the current
strategy advocated by Gen. George W. Casey Jr., which has stressed stepping
up the training of Iraqi forces and handing off to them as soon as possible. The details of the plan
under study by the White House are not known, but in most scenarios the troop
increase would be accomplished in large part by accelerating some scheduled
deployments while delaying the departure of units in Iraq. President Bush has made no
final decision, the White House said. Gordon Johndroe, the National Security
Council spokesman, said that no memorandums outlining the options for increasing
troop strength had gone to the president. But one senior official said the
subject was discussed at length on Wednesday during Mr. Bush’s briefing at
the Pentagon, and the president has reportedly asked detailed questions that
some officials have interpreted as suggesting that he is strongly leaning in
that direction. American military officials
said Friday night that the Pentagon was planning to send the Second Brigade
of the 82nd Airborne Division to Kuwait in January. The brigade, based at Fort
Bragg, N.C., would serve as a reserve that commanders in Iraq could draw on. American military commanders
have been operating without such a reserve since the Marine unit that had
been on call was dispatched to Anbar Province in western Iraq. The Army brigade
could become an element of a larger troop deployment to Iraq if the White
House decided to increase troops there. That option has been central
to a broader debate in Washington. Advocates of a troop increase say the aim
would be to reverse the slide toward an all-out civil war and give the new
Iraqi government more time to consolidate control, while training of Iraqis
is stepped up. At the same time, American
and Iraqi forces would try to tamp down strife in neighborhoods that contain
Shiites and Sunnis, and slow insurgent attacks. To be effective, proponents
say, these tactics would need to be married to a broader political and
economic strategy to generate employment in Baghdad and stabilize Iraq. Critics of a surge approach
have argued that any American troop increase would lead to more American
casualties and merely put off the day when the Iraqis need to assume
responsibility for their own security. There is also concern that
the military benefits would be short-lived unless the higher troop levels
were sustained for a long period, adding to the strain on American forces.
Alternatively, critics say, if the surge in troop levels was too brief,
adversaries could simply wait for the reinforcements to leave. Senator John McCain, Republican
of Arizona, said during a visit to Baghdad this week that American military
commanders were discussing the possibility of adding as many as 10 more
combat brigades - a maximum of about 35,000 troops - to establish some of
control while Iraq’s divided political leaders seek solutions to the mounting
violence. On Friday, however, one
administration official said that additional work was needed to fit a troop
increase into the larger strategy, as well as on technical aspects about how
the operation would be carried out. “There has not been a full articulation
of what we would want the surge to accomplish,” he said. Strikingly, the surge
proposal has not been actively promoted by the top commander in Iraq. General
Casey, the senior American commander in Baghdad, has emphasized faster
training of Iraqi security forces, an effort that would be supported in part
by converting existing combat forces into trainers. Gen. John P. Abizaid, the
top American commander in the Middle East, has said that the advantages of a
surge in troop levels would be temporary, and that it might dissuade Iraqis
from doing more to provide for their own security. Some of the chiefs of the
services that would supply forces for the surge have spoken about it in
hedged terms. “We would not surge without a purpose,” Peter J. Schoomaker,
the Army chief of staff, told reporters on Thursday. “And that purpose should
be measurable.” But Lt. Gen. Raymond T.
Odierno, who is assuming day-to-day command of American troops in Iraq from
Lt. Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, is said to be sympathetic to the idea. The surge proposal has also
gained greater support among recently retired officers who served in Iraq,
particularly if carried out as part of a broader political and economic
strategy. Two retired Army veterans
who served in the unit that took control of the northern Iraqi city of Tal
Afar in 2005 - Col. Joel Armstrong and Maj. Daniel Dwyer - helped draft a new
study issued Thursday by the American Enterprise Institute that called for
sending an additional four or five combat brigades, or some 14,000 to 17,500
troops, to Baghdad. The study determined that
the military could sustain a surge of that level, but that it would require
sending several Army brigades back to Iraq a couple of months early and
extending the customary yearlong Army tour to 15 months. In its report last week, the
bipartisan Iraq Study Group rejected the idea of a “substantial” force
increase on the order of 100,000 to 200,000 troops, saying that those levels
were not “available for a sustained deployment” and would feed fears in Iraq
that the United States was planning a long-term occupation. “We could, however, support
a short-term redeployment or surge of American combat forces to stabilize
Baghdad,” the report added, “or to speed up the training and equipping
mission, if the U.S. commander in Iraq determines that such steps would be
effective.” Bush Speaks With Maliki Washington, Dec. 15 -
President Bush held a videoconference with the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri Kamal
al-Maliki, on Friday, the eve of a Baghdad conference aimed at cooling
sectarian violence. At the conference, Kurdish,
Shiite and Sunni Arab politicians are expected to discuss a reconciliation
plan that includes possible amnesty for insurgent fighters and proposals to
curb militia violence. White House officials said
Mr. Bush spoke by secure video with Mr. Maliki for roughly half an hour. Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman
for the National Security Council, said Mr. Maliki talked about his desire “for
a larger core of Iraqi political leaders to come together for the common
objective of stabilizing Iraq.” The Bush administration has been encouraging
Mr. Maliki to rely less on the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Copyright 2006 The New York
Times Company External link: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/16/world/middleeast/16military.html |