The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East said Tuesday that more than 140,000 American troops would need to remain in Iraq at least through next spring to contain sectarian violence and stabilize the capital. General John Abizaid made the remarks during a question-and-answer session with defense reporters in Washington.
Force levels had dropped as low as 127,000 in June but have since climbed to roughly 147,000 due to overlapping unit rotations. Abizaid said he had expected reductions of a couple of brigades by this point, but a surge in sectarian bloodshed and delays in forming an Iraqi government prevented that.
The general said conditions in Baghdad had improved slightly after troops were redeployed there from other parts of the country, though he cautioned that a clearer military picture would take several more months to emerge.
Abizaid acknowledged that the troubled western Al-Anbar province could not receive the same focus as Baghdad, saying a heavy concentration of forces there would draw troops away from higher-priority areas. A Marine Corps intelligence assessment had recently warned that Al-Qaeda in Iraq was becoming the dominant force in Al-Anbar.
He noted that of roughly 500,000 total U.S. ground troops, about 390,000 were already deployed, returning from deployment, or preparing to ship out, leaving limited flexibility for additional commitments.
Historical summary. TurkishPress restated this wire report, first published in September 2006, in its own words.