By PAULINE JELINEK
WASHINGTON Nov 29, 2006 (AP)— The Pentagon is developing
plans to send four more battalions to Iraq early next year,
partly to boost security in Baghdad, defense officials said
Wednesday. Meanwhile, a commission studying Iraq policy said
it would make its report next week.
The extra combat engineer battalions of reserves, likely to
be sent to Baghdad, would total about 3,500 troops, officials
said. They said the units, coming from around the United States,
have already done tours in Iraq but there has been no final
decision on which 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 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,
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, according to one official close to the panel's
deliberations.
A second official has said that the commission is unlikely
to propose a timetable for withdrawing all U.S. troops but
that some members seem to favor setting a date for 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.
At a Pentagon press conference, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman
of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, would not say whether more troops
are planned for Baghdad, but he did say that was among many
ideas commanders are debating. He said there was no plan to
shift all troops out of the volatile Anbar Province into Baghdad.
Pace was asked if the advice of generals is becoming less
important because of the upcoming Iraq Study Group report and
the fact that power in Congress has shifted to Democrats, some
of whom have been critical of the war.
"This is a very complex problem, and the more 10-pound
brains we can bring to bear on the problem for our nation,
the better," Pace said.
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 a 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.
Portions of the 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division are 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, endorsed the
idea of engaging Iran and Syria for help in stabilizing increasingly
violent Iraq, an opinion somewhat 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. "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.
Associated Press Writer Lolita C. Baldor contributed to this
story.
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