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TOKYO, Nov 25 (Reuters) - Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari urged Japan on Friday to keep its troops in southern Iraq, saying an early pullout of coalition forces would lead to more violence by insurgents. Zebari said his war-torn country had made progress on improving security, but added it faced a crucial period ahead of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election. "The difficult part has gone in my view. We're very close to reaching a more stable form of government and of security," Zebari told a news conference following a meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. "Now, any premature withdrawal...

In the circles opposed to the toppling of Saddam Hussein one word is making the rounds these days: timetable. Having failed to stop the war that liberated Iraq, and with their hopes of the insurgents marching triumphant into Baghdad dashed, they are now focusing on one issue: the withdrawal of the US-led coalition forces. Some want this to happen immediately, while others are prepared to grant a few weeks or months. Those Democrat politicians in Washington, who had backed the war with as much enthusiasm as George W Bush, are now using the issue of withdrawal as a means of...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23, 2005 – Recent news reports that say major U.S. troop reductions in Iraq may occur next year are speculative in nature, a senior Defense Department official said today. "When we have any major force adjustments, I think we've always been very good about making those decisions known to you," DoD spokesman Bryan Whitman told Pentagon reporters. The Defense Department routinely prepares for possible contingencies, Whitman said, noting such planning could include increasing or decreasing troop levels in a certain geographic area. Currently, there are more than 150,000 U.S. troops in Iraq. "The United States military looks at...

One of the most critical issues that members of Congress must address is the wisdom of setting a schedule for our continued presence in Iraq. In this regard, I would hope that they would look back to September 1983, when both houses of Congress held War Powers Act hearings on our presence in Beirut as part of a multinational force. I asked Congress then not to set a schedule for our withdrawal from war-torn Lebanon. I said, "If the time is too short, our enemies will wait us out; if it is too long, they will drive us out." My...

Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat brigades, from 18 now, but to keep at least one brigade "on call" in Kuwait in case more troops are needed quickly, several senior military officers said. Pentagon authorities also have set a series of "decision points" during 2006 to consider further force cuts that, under a "moderately optimistic" scenario, would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000, including 10 combat brigades, by the end...

The Washington Post reports that soon after the last round of Iraqi elections concludes, American commanders in Iraq plan to drop three of the 18 brigades deployed in Iraq, in favor of the burgeoning Iraqi security forces. One brigade would transfer to neighboring Kuwait as a rapid-reaction force, and the other two brigades would simply never arrive to relieve two slated to return to the United States in the first quarter of 2006: Barring any major surprises in Iraq, the Pentagon tentatively plans to reduce the number of U.S. forces there early next year by as many as three combat...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 23 (UPI) -- The Pentagon has tentative plans to withdraw as many as 50,000 U.S. troops from Iraq by the end of 2006, but will keep some on standby in Kuwait. As pressure for troop withdrawal mounts both in the United States and among Iraqis, Lt. Gen. John Vines, the senior tactical commander in Iraq, told reporters his staff had looked at shrinking U.S. force levels more quickly. Officers said in a "moderately optimistic" scenario, they would drop the total number of troops from more than 150,000 now to fewer than 100,000 by the end of the year,...

Senator John McCain on Thursday called for an immediate increase of 10,000 troops in Iraq, and said the “stakes are higher than they were in Vietnam” for US foreign policy. Conceding that there was an “undeniable sense that things are slipping” in Iraq, Mr McCain said “we need a renewed effort to win the home front. Without it we will lose this war as soundly as if we had lost on the battlefield...We must get Iraq right, as American stakes in the conflict are enormous”. Senator John Kerry has laid out an alternative strategy that would enable the US to...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 3 (Xinhuanet) -- The Pentagon said Thursday that it will scale back the troop level in Iraq to 138,000 after the country's Dec. 15 election. The plan was announced by James T. Conway, director of operations for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff at a Pentagon news conference. He said the US military will keep a reinforced level of some 160,000 soldiers through the election and then make a "fairly rapid" reduction to what has been the standard troop level of about 138,000. "I think the answer is, as soon as possible, as soon as our logistics capability...

Troop strength is a recurring topic of discussion regarding our difficulties in Iraq. Unfortunately, what began as cries of "not enough troops" from left-leaning political partisans eventually grew into a choir that included more credible individuals. Among them were people very familiar with the situation in Iraq: Anthony Zinni, Senator Joe Biden, Colin Powell, and Frederick Kagan, to name a few. It is disappointing that intelligent people who are well versed in military affairs are capable of seeing a forest but fail to recognize that it is composed of trees, with some trees bearing more fruit than others. To put...

WASHINGTON _ As U.S. officials pressed Iraqis to finish work on a new constitution, a leading Democratic lawmaker said Sunday the Bush administration is downgrading expectations for a flourishing Middle East democracy signaling a possible exit strategy. "They have squandered about every opportunity to get it right," said Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware. "The bottom line is they are significantly lowering expectations." Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, also told NBC's "Meet the Press" he has seen no evidence that the Sunni-led insurgency in Iraq is losing steam as a political force an assertion made recently by...

WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- U.S. and coalition troops have have numbered at least 250,000 in Iraq to provide security in the immediate aftermath of the war, the Rand Corp. said. Rand, a major think tank, calculates that for security and stability in the "golden period" immediately following the invasion and the toppling of Saddam Hussein`s regime, the coalition should have deployed 1,000 troops for every 100,000 inhabitants. It bases this on an analysis of previous peacekeeping missions that have been successful - notably, Kosovo and East Timor. "Establishing security in the short-run is critical to avert chaos and...

Dear Senator Frist, Senator Reid, Speaker Hastert, and Representative Pelosi: The United States military is too small for the responsibilities we are asking it to assume. Those responsibilities are real and important. They are not going away. The United States will not and should not become less engaged in the world in the years to come. But our national security, global peace and stability, and the defense and promotion of freedom in the post-9/11 world require a larger military force than we have today. The administration has unfortunately resisted increasing our ground forces to the size needed to meet today's...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The strain of fighting a longer, bloodier war in Iraq than U.S. commanders originally foresaw brings forth a question that most would have dismissed only a year ago: Is the military in danger of running out of reserve troops? At first glance the answer would appear to be a clear no. There are nearly 1.2 million men and women on the reserve rolls, and only about 70,000 are now in Iraq to supplement the regulars. But a deeper look inside the Army National Guard, Army Reserve and Marine Corps Reserve suggests a grimmer picture: At the current...

October 19, 2004'CATASTROPHIC SUCCESS'The Strategy to Secure Iraq Did Not Foresee a 2nd WarBy MICHAEL R. GORDON en. Tommy R. Franks climbed out of a C-130 plane at the Baghdad airport on April 16, 2003, and pumped his fist into the air. American troops had pushed into the capital of liberated Iraq little more than a week before, and it was the war commander's first visit to the city.Much of the Sunni Triangle was only sparsely patrolled, and Baghdad was still reeling from a spasm of looting. Apache attack helicopters prowled the skies as General Franks headed to the Abu...

Members of the US military and their families say the Bush administration underestimated the number of troops needed in Iraq and put too much pressure on inadequately trained National Guard and reserve forces, according to a poll released today. The National Annenberg Election Survey found that 62% in the military sample said the administration didn’t send an adequate number of troops to Iraq. And 59% said too much of a burden has been put on the National Guard and the reserves when regular forces should have been expanded instead. Family members were more critical of the administration’s Iraq policy than...

How many American troops should be posted in Iraq, beyond the present spike of 135,000 — a number that was itself raised from the informally agreed-upon level of 115,000? Critical Consensus This question of numbers came sharply to the fore in April in light of the sudden toll taken on American forces confronting the insurrections in Falluja and Najaf. But the ferocity of renewed battle was not the only impetus behind the controversy. There was, for instance, the announcement in March that the new government of Spain was withdrawing its contingent from Iraq; the ongoing controversy over Secretary of Defense...

Senate Votes to Add 20,000 Troops to Army 15 minutes ago By KEN GUGGENHEIM, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Defying the Bush administration, the Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to add 20,000 troops to an Army stretched thin by the war in Iraq and other commitments around the world. The 93-4 vote in the Republican-led Senate — following a similar action by the House — reflected the anxieties lawmakers have been hearing from families of service personnel whose tours in Iraq keep getting extended and whose return to civilian life is repeatedly postponed. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said the lack of...

When Germany surrendered in May 1945, the U.S. Army had more than 1.6 million men within the borders of the defeated Nazi state. Overnight they became occupation troops: Their orders were to spread out over every square mile of German territory and demonstrate without a doubt that they were in charge. U.S. troops secured every road junction, bridge, border post, government building, factory, bank, warehouse; anything of the slightest conceivable importance had a guard of GIs around it, and so did a good many things of little or no importance, too. Army plans called for an occupation force of some...

<p>The Pentagon announced yesterday it will maintain its expanded force of 138,000 troops in Iraq at least through 2005, based on a request from Gen. John Abizaid, commander of forces in the region.</p> <p>That level was attained by extending the tours of 20,000 troops already in Iraq and who now must be relieved from a larger replacement force.</p>