http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101051_pf.html

U.S. force in Iraq at 140,000

By Will Dunham
Reuters
Thursday, August 31, 2006; 6:15 PM



WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States has expanded its force in Iraq to 140,000 troops, the most since January and 13,000 more than five weeks ago, the Pentagon said on Thursday, amid relentless violence in Baghdad and elsewhere.

This follows July's decision by commanders to augment the U.S. military presence in Baghdad to try to curb escalating sectarian violence that has heightened concern about all-out civil war in Iraq.

Lt. Col. Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Iraq, said there are now about 15,000 U.S. troops operating in Baghdad.

As American troops continue to fight a tenacious insurgency nearly 3 1/2 years into the war, U.S. military deaths in Iraq reached at least 64 in August -- increasing from 43 in July and ending three straight monthly declines.

August's total still was about average for a war in which 63.7 U.S. troops have died per month. Deaths have ranged from a low of 20 in February 2004 to a high of 137 in November of that year. There have been 2,635 U.S. military deaths since war began in March 2003, and another 19,773 troops have been wounded in action, the Pentagon said.

Recent moves including the Pentagon's July 27 decision to delay for up to four months the scheduled departure from Iraq of about 4,000 soldiers from an Alaska-based brigade have indicated significant U.S. troop cuts are unlikely in the near future.

The Pentagon said the U.S. force, which stood at 127,000 on July 25, now numbers 140,000.

A defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the U.S. force likely will remain at about the current level in the coming months, but could shrink a bit by the end of the year depending on conditions in Iraq.

The arrival of fresh troops as part of the routine rotation of U.S. forces also has contributed to the current increase because some of those they are replacing have not yet left, officials said.

This summer's expansion of the U.S. force came in response to a surge of violence particularly in the capital -- much of it between Shi'ite and Sunni Muslims.

U.S. military officers in Baghdad have said violence including murders declined in August from July's high levels but that there are still about 56 attacks per day in the capital.

President George W. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Army Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, all have expressed a desire to reduce the U.S. presence in Iraq if Iraqi security and political conditions permit.

Casey on Wednesday said he foresaw Iraqi government security forces assuming control of security in their own country within 12 to 18 months with "very little" support from U.S.-led forces. But Casey said it was not clear when Iraqi troops would be able to go it alone and the United States could start withdrawing troops.

As recently as June, when the U.S. force stood at 125,000 with 14 combat brigades, Casey offered a plan to reduce by two brigades -- roughly 3,500 each -- this fall, with perhaps two more gone by December. His plan envisioned the U.S. force shrinking to five or six combat brigades by December 2007.

Currently all or parts of 18 combat brigades are in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

The U.S. force in Iraq peaked last October and December at around 160,000 troops to help protect two Iraqi elections.

© 2006 Reuters

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/15405180
AMERICA IN IRAQ
U.S. shelving plans to cut troops
By Louise Roug and Julian E. Barnes
Los Angeles Times
BAGHDAD, Iraq - On a day when at least 78 people were killed or found dead across Iraq, the top U.S. commander in the country said Wednesday that Iraqi security forces will need a year to 18 months longer before they can take over from U.S. troops.

Gen. George W. Casey's assessment drove home a growing realization that U.S. troops will stay longer and in greater numbers in Iraq than once anticipated by ground commanders and the Bush administration.

``I don't have a date, but I can see over the next 12 to 18 months, the Iraqi security forces progressing to a point where they can take on the security responsibilities for the country, with very little coalition support,'' Casey told reporters in Baghdad.

He would not commit to a U.S. drawdown after that date, saying it depended on the security situation in the country.

``We'll adjust that as we go,'' Casey said, referring to U.S. troop levels in the country. ``But a lot of that, in fact the future coalition presence, 12 to 18 months from now is going to be decided by the Iraqi government.''

Capital violence

Wednesday, the worst of the violence hit civilians in and around the capital.

Just after 7 a.m., a bomb exploded near an Iraqi army recruitment center in the Shiite-dominated city of Al-Hillah, south of the capital, ripping through an ice cream store. At least 13 people were killed in the explosion, according to Kadhim Jafari, an Al-Hillah hospital official.

Ali Adbdelhassan, 28, was having breakfast when the force of the explosion sent furniture flying in his apartment. He walked outside, where he found severed limbs and torn bodies. Among the wounded were his 8-year-old niece, Shaima, and his nephew, 2-year-old Hussein, both burned in the explosion, he said.

A few hours later in the capital, a bomb tore through a busy wholesale market shortly before 10 a.m., killing at least 24 people and injuring 35 more, police said.

Forty minutes after the market bombing, two bombs exploded near a gas station about two miles away, killing two civilians and a policeman who was trapped inside his car, according to authorities.

Last year, Casey said ``significant'' troop withdrawals could take place soon after the Iraqi elections that December. Casey and other top commanders said at the time that they were prepared to recommend a drawdown of 30,000 soldiers by the spring, if the election and training of security forces went well.

The start of reductions was delayed by an outbreak of civil warfare, but Casey said in May that his ``general timeline'' was still on track. In June, Casey predicted ``gradual reductions'' in U.S. troop levels over the following year. By last month, generals began shelving plans for troop cuts this year and instead ordered extensions of combat tours as violence worsened.

Casey said confidence in the security forces is key to dismantling the militias. But the Iraqi government has taken few concrete steps to disarm or dismantle them, and their members have infiltrated the security forces, where they have been accused of forming death squads.

About 8,000 U.S. personnel and 3,000 Iraqi soldiers have flooded sections of the capital, including several that had been turned over to Iraqi forces this spring. Military officials say the increased patrols and searches have lowered Baghdad's homicide rate, which soared to 1,800 in July.

Little reconciliation

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki touted the drop in the homicide rate as evidence of ``an atmosphere of reconciliation'' in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

But the week that followed showed little reconciliation, and August is now ending on a bloody note. Since Sunday, at least 317 people have been killed countrywide -- 126 of them in the capital.

In violence elsewhere in Baghdad on Wednesday, gunmen shot and killed a manager at the Ministry of Justice, her driver and bodyguard. Near a rug factory, gunmen shot and killed three people on a bus in western Baghdad.

A U.S. Marine assigned to 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Tuesday from wounds sustained during operations in Al-Anbar province, the military said Wednesday.

Sixteen bodies were found in two Baghdad neighborhoods, most showing signs of torture. Five more bodies were found floating in the Tigris River about 30 miles south of the capital.