Pentagon Plans to Boost Baghdad Security

11/29/2006

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Pentagon is developing plans to send four more battalions of U.S. troops to Iraq early next year to boost security in Baghdad, senior defense officials said Wednesday. Meanwhile, a closely watched bipartisan commission studying U.S. policy in Iraq said it would release its report next week.


The extra combat engineer battalions of reserves to be sent to Baghdad would total about 3,500 troops, officials said. They said the units would come from around the United States and have already done a tour in Iraq, but they said there has been no final decision on which battalions will go.


The moves come as violence continues to rise in Baghdad, and President Bush is under growing pressure to craft an exit strategy that would withdraw a substantial number of U.S. troops from Iraq, while shifting more responsibility to the Iraqi government. The Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan commission looking into Iraq war policy, said it will release its much-anticipated report to the president, Congress and the public on Dec. 6.


The commission, led by former Secretary of State James A. Baker III and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, D-Ind., is widely expected to call for regional talks as part of its recommendations for a way forward in Iraq, including involvement by Syria and Iran. The Bush administration has been reluctant to engage those two countries, which it says have abetted the violence in Iraq.


It remained unclear what the group would recommend regarding possible U.S. troop withdrawals. As of Tuesday, its members - five Democrats and five Republicans - were divided over the appropriate U.S. troop levels in Iraq, and whether and how to pull American forces out of the country, according to one official close to the panel's deliberations.


A second official has said that the commission was unlikely to propose a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq but that some members seemed to favor setting a date for only an initial withdrawal, an idea that has been pushed by many congressional Democrats.


There are 139,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, with some 20,000 in and around Baghdad.


The Pentagon's decisions on which reserve battalions to send to Iraq next year would depend on how long the units had already served on the battlefront, because the Pentagon is trying to not break the current policy of deploying troops no longer than 24 months on the ground in Iraq. The decision-making process was described by defense officials who requested anonymity because the plans have not yet been announced.


In addition, military leaders are shifting brigades within Iraq. The officials said they are moving a Stryker Brigade into Baghdad to help shore up security there. The 3rd Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division will move from Mosul in northern Iraq, down to Baghdad to replace a Stryker brigade that has gone home to Alaska.


The 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division is moving into Iraq and heading up to Mosul to take its place, officials said.


In another development, former CIA Director Robert Gates, President Bush's nominee for defense secretary, criticized the handling of the war in Iraq and said he will improve Pentagon postwar planning if he is confirmed.


Gates also endorsed the idea of engaging Iran and Syria for help in stabilizing increasingly violent Iraq, an opinion at odds with Bush's.


Gates made the comments in response to a questionnaire from the Senate Armed Services Committee, which is to hold a confirmation hearing next week.


"War planning should be done with the understanding that post-major combat phase of operations can be crucial," Gates said in a 65-page written response submitted to the committee Tuesday.


"If confirmed, I intend to improve the department's capabilities in this area," he said in answer to a question about what he would have done differently. "With the advantage of hindsight, I might have done some things differently."


Gates also appeared to subtly criticize the invasion of Iraq.


"I believe the use of pre-emptive force should be based on very strong evidence," he said when asked about incorrect intelligence saying that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. "It is a decision that must not be taken lightly," Gates added.


He also said that "hard questions" must be asked about intelligence.


Asked whether the United States should engage Iran and Syria for help in stabilizing Iraq, Gates endorsed the idea but said talks need not be on a one-on-one basis.


"Even in the worst days of the Cold War, the U.S. maintained a dialogue with the Soviet Union and China, and I believe those channels of communication helped us manage many potentially difficult situations," the nominee said of proposals for talks with Iran.