With an interim Iraqi government now in place, the Pentagon is beginning long-range planning on how to reduce the number of US troops in Iraq, senior military officials said Wednesday.
Pentagon officials have previously said that about 135,000 troops would stay in Iraq through the end of next year. But the military's Joint Staff is working on detailed plans to reduce that number by 2006, on the assumption that Iraqi army and other security forces will by then be ready to take on more responsibility, officials said.
On Capitol Hill Wednesday, the top operations officer for the Joint Staff, Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz of the Air Force, signaled that this thinking is well under way. When asked about planning for the size of the US force that will move into Iraq for yearlong assignments beginning in late next year and early 2006, he declined to specify troop figures but said: "There is a significant planning effort that will wrap up later this summer."
PHOTO: AFP
A senior defense official said later that the Joint Staff was developing options for a smaller force in Iraq, proposals that would be consistent with the goal of General John Abizaid, the top US commander in the Middle East, to reduce US military presence in Iraq over time. Some officials said those options center around 100,000 troops, or less, but troop levels could also increase if security in Iraq worsened.
Reducing US force levels in Iraq has been a goal of the Bush administration, although any reduction would almost certainly come after the November elections.
The continued US presence is also a sore spot for the new Iraqi government as it seeks to establish credibility with the Iraqi people. And reducing it would lessen the strains placed on the US Army by troop commitments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries.
Democrats and Republicans voiced concern at Wednesday's hearing that the Army was wearing out its active duty and reserve forces, a worry that even a top Army officer said he shared.
"Are we stretched thin with our active and reserve component forces right now? Absolutely," said General Richard Cody, the new Army vice chief of staff.
But Cody, along with the Pentagon's top personnel official, David Chu, said the Army was meeting its commitments, and recruiting and retention were still generally strong.
For the first time, Schwartz outlined the Pentagon's strategy for how Iraqi national guard and army forces could gradually replace US troops around the country, starting in the relatively stable north where he said security patrols will soon be conducted exclusively by Iraqi forces. In parts of the country where the insurgency is still fierce, US forces will remain in strength and conduct patrols on their own or with Iraqi troops.
"The bottom line is, is that this will be done incrementally and it will be done in locations around Iraq where transitions can occur and the Iraqi security forces can be successful," said Schwartz, who said that as Iraqi forces prove they can secure a region, US forces there will move to more restive areas.
"We will cascade American forces from those locations to places where they can be better utilized," Schwartz said. "And ultimately, naturally, we'll reduce the force structure in Iraq."
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not