US plans to maintain 135,000 troops in Iraq as it intensifies Iraqi traini

[leftchick]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20050203/pl_afp/usiraqforces&cid=1521&ncid=1480


Asked how many troops the United States would need over the next six months to a year, Wolfowitz told members of the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), "135,000."


Later, he said that was "not a prediction, that's a planning factor. If we can bring those numbers down intelligently we'll always bring those numbers down."


But he said keeping US forces in Iraq longer was "a worthwhile tradeoff" if it leads to capable Iraqi security forces being fielded faster.


<snip>

But General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, acknowledged that the US military does not have a good measure of the quality of the estimated 136,000 Iraqi security forces that have been trained and equipped so far.


He estimated that 48 Iraqi battalions, or about 40,000 troops, are capable of being deployed anywhere in the country for combat operations.


... I heard it is more like 4000!

[Tempest]

1. Last week Iraqi Defense Minister said it was 4,200 troops

Wolfowitz is a damned liar.

[Tempest]

2. Wolfowitz Says No Nationalist Insurgency in Iraq

Iraq (news - web sites)'s elections showed that U.S.-led forces are not fighting a nationalist insurgency but an "unholy alliance of old terrorists and new terrorists" trying to destroy Iraq's newly forming government, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said on Thursday.
http://tinyurl.com/43nmy


The Jerusalem Post named Wolfie Israel's 2003 Man of the Year.

You don't suppose his warmongering in Iraq had anything to do with it, do you?

[ckramer]

3. The only thing the insurgents know is this:

The US will not stay in Iraq forever. So there's a reason to fight.