The New York Times
Wednesday 30 January 2008
Washington — Four months after announcing troop reductions in Iraq, President Bush is now sending signals that the cuts may not continue past this summer, a development likely to infuriate Democrats and renew concerns among military planners about strains on the force.
Mr. Bush has made no decisions on troop reductions to follow those he announced last September. But White House officials said Mr. Bush had been taking the opportunity, as he did in Monday’s State of the Union address, to prepare Americans for the possibility that, when he leaves office a year from now, the military presence in Iraq will be just as large as it was a year ago, or even slightly larger.
The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Mr. Bush wanted to tamp down criticism that a large, sustained presence in Iraq would harm the overall health of the military — a view held not only by Democrats, but by some members of his own Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Within the Pentagon, senior officers have struggled to balance the demands of the Iraq war against the competing demands to recruit, train and retain a robust and growing ground force. That institutional tension is personified by two of Mr. Bush’s top generals, David H. Petraeus, the top commander in Iraq, and George W. Casey Jr., the Army chief of staff. General Petraeus’s mission is to win the war; General Casey must also worry about the health of the whole Army.
"We’re concerned about the health of the force as well, but the most important thing is that they succeed in Iraq," said one senior White House official, adding, "If the commanders on the ground believe we need to maintain the troop numbers at the current level to maintain security for a little while longer, then that’s what the president will do."
That strong White House tilt in favor of General Petraeus comes as he prepares to testify before Congress in April about the next step in Iraq. In September, based on General Petraeus’s earlier recommendation, Mr. Bush announced that he intended to withdraw five combat brigades and Marine units — roughly 20,000 troops — from Iraq by July. That would leave 15 combat brigades in place.
In his address to Congress, Mr. Bush spoke of those reductions, but not of any future ones.
What a continuing commitment of 15 brigades — more than 130,000 troops — would mean for the Army as a whole is said to be a major concern of General Casey, among others on the joint staff. But officials said Mr. Bush’s primary concern was not letting military gains in Iraq slip away, a warning he issued in his State of the Union address.
After meeting General Petraeus in Kuwait this month, he appeared to give the general tacit permission to recommend no further troop reductions.
"My attitude is, if he didn’t want to continue the drawdown, that’s fine with me, in order to make sure we succeed, see," Mr. Bush said then. "I said to the general, if you want to slow her down, fine, it’s up to you."
Mr. Bush hinted in September that there might be more reductions to come, although he has never made an explicit promise. The Pentagon has also not made any promises, although military planners have talked about wanting to reduce the number of brigades to 12 from 15 by the end of this year, if the security situation improves enough to permit it.
Mr. Bush’s defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, has said he would like to cut even further, eventually dropping to 10 brigades if possible. But Mr. Gates has avoided using specific numbers in more recent comments, and says unswervingly that he would be guided by conditions on the ground.
At the Pentagon, officials said the withdrawal of 20,000 combat troops pledged by Mr. Bush left open the future of the 7,000 to 8,000 support and aviation troops that accompanied those "surge" combat forces.
If those extra support troops remain in Iraq even after the withdrawal of the additional combat troops, then it is possible that the number of American military personnel in Iraq after the surge could be higher than before, officials said.
US Troops Allegedly Killed Detainees
By Julian E. Barnes and Kimi Yoshino
The Los Angeles Times
Wednesday 30 January 2008
The Army is investigating a case in which soldiers are accused in the deaths of suspects they captured last year in Baghdad.
Washington — U.S. Army officials are investigating allegations that American soldiers killed several detainees after they were captured on a battlefield in southwest Baghdad last year, officials said Tuesday.
Military officials said the incident under review took place about six months ago in the Rasheed district and involved soldiers with the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Infantry Division. The brigade, which is based in Germany, was deployed to Iraq from September 2006 to November 2007.
The detainees allegedly were killed at the point of capture and never taken to a U.S. or Iraqi base for questioning, said Paul Boyce, a U.S. Army spokesman. The military did not reveal how many soldiers may have been involved, how many detainees may have died or who made the allegations. Frequently, such allegations surface months after an incident, when soldiers come forward or talk among themselves.
Soldiers from at least one company of the 2nd Brigade were questioned by investigators last week in Germany. The inquiry is being led by the Army's Criminal Investigation Command.
In Iraq on Tuesday, it was another day of high-profile violence in the northern city of Mosul, where a suicide bomber detonated his car near an American military convoy. One Iraqi was killed and 15 others were injured, Iraqi police and U.S. military officials said.
Mosul is considered the last urban stronghold for the militant group Al Qaeda in Iraq. The attack came one day after five U.S. soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb and less than a week after a booby-trapped apartment building exploded, killing as many as 60 people.
To the south in Muqdadiya, security officials said they found nine corpses and 10 severed heads in the countryside. The nine corpses, all male, were found blindfolded, handcuffed and shot in the head. The 10 heads also were found blindfolded, Diyala provincial police officials said.
But another Diyala police official gave a different version of the findings, saying that eight heads and eight corpses had been discovered over the course of several months. The bodies were being moved from Muqdadiya to Baqubah, the official said, because of a broken freezer at the morgue.
U.S. military officials have long struggled to gain control of Diyala, a largely rural stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq. American troops helped take back the provincial capital of Baqubah last year, only to drive insurgents into outlying communities such as Muqdadiya. This month, thousands of troops descended on the Diyala River valley in another effort to strike at the group, which military officials say is foreign-led but whose foot soldiers are primarily Iraqis.
In Tharthar, north of Fallouja in Anbar province, Iraqi police reported clashes between a group of gunmen and members of the nearby Saqlawiya Awakening Council. Police said 20 gunmen were killed in the battle; a member of the U.S.-backed security force of local citizens said 22 people had died.
"We were trying to capture a group of terrorists who had a stronghold there and were robbing and killing citizens driving along that road," said Alahi Ahmed, a member of the Awakening Council. "Our aim was to secure the pathway and cleanse it from these thieves."
kimi.yoshino@latimes.com
Barnes reported from Washington and Yoshino from Baghdad. Special correspondents in Mosul, Ramadi and Baghdad contributed to this report.
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