21,000 Troops Notified for Iraq Deployment
By LOLITA C. BALDOR Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon has notified about 21,000 Army soldiers and Marines that they are scheduled to be sent to Iraq late this year as part of the latest deployment rotation.
Four major combat brigades from Texas, Alaska and Colorado are scheduled to replace troops returning home from the war, the Pentagon said. Thus, the announcement does not signal an increase in troop strength in Iraq.
In a press release Tuesday, the Pentagon said the planned assignments could change depending on the conditions in Baghdad. The move comes as Pentagon officials and the Bush administration are under increasing pressure from Congress and the public to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq.
Combined with last November's announcement of 92,000 American service members scheduled to go to Iraq in the 2006-2008 rotation, this would bring the total U.S. troop level to about 113,000 for that period. That is less than the approximately 138,000 average troop level for the past year, but more than military officials' goal of less than 100,000 by the end of the year.
There are about 127,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.
Not all of the units in the first 92,000 have gone to Iraq yet. A Germany-based Army brigade's travel to Iraq was put on hold just last month _ triggering talk that a U.S. troop cut might be in the offing. They are now scheduled to go this summer. And a Fort Lewis, Washington, brigade began shipping equipment to Iraq this month and the soldiers are expect to follow soon.
The moves suggest that U.S. commanders are sticking largely to their original troop rotation plan for this year, leaving unclear when and if a sizable reduction in U.S. troop levels will begin.
Defense officials said the announcement makes no major changes to the number of troops in Iraq and should not be interpreted as a move to either decrease or increase the size of the military there.
"Force levels in Iraq continue to be conditions-based and will be determined in consultation with the Iraqi government," the announcement said. "Changes may be made that could affect units now being identified and advised to prepare to deploy."
The decision was made by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, based on recommendations by commanders in the field.
The units are: 3rd Corps Headquarters, 1st Cavalry Division Headquarters, the 2nd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, and the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, all from Fort Hood in Texas; the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force from Camp Lejeune, N.C.; the 4th Brigade, 25th Infantry Division from Fort Richardson in Alaska; and the 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, from Fort Carson in Colorado.
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my son's deployment is still ago...he leaves for Ft Dix Sunday, then to Basra.....
The deaths of Army Specialist Patrick McCaffrey, 34 years old, and Lieutenant Andre Tyson, 1st Lieutenant Andre Tyson, 33 years old, were originally attributed to an ambush during a patrol near Balad in Iraq on June 22, 2004. But the AP has now learned that the Army's Criminal Investigation Division concluded, there was foul play.
After probing the circumstances of the death of these two soldiers for several months, the investigators have found that one or more of the Iraqis attached to the American soldiers on patrol fired at them. We're going to continue to watch this story, get more information as it becomes available -- a very, very disturbing story related to what's going on in Iraq.
I'm Wolf Blitzer. You're in THE SITUATION ROOM.
It's a level of barbarism showing a thirst for blood -- the bodies of two American soldiers found booby-trapped in a field of bombs, so badly mutilated, the military can't I.D. their faces. The details are tough to hear, especially for their families.
Our Ed Lavandera is in Houston with more on this developing story.
What a horrible story it is, Ed.
ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: It's been a long day here in Houston, Wolf, where the family of Kristian Menchaca got the call early this morning, as they started hearing the reports out of Iraq that two one of the -- one of the two missing soldiers in Iraq was indeed their loved one.
LAVANDERA (voice-over): The details of Army Private 1st Class Kristian Menchaca's last moments alive are so horrifying that his family could not restrain their anger for his killers.
MARIO VASQUEZ, UNCLE OF PRIVATE 1ST CLASS KRISTIAN MENCHACA: Make them pay for what they did. You know, don't think that it's just two more soldiers. And don't negotiate anything. They didn't. They didn't negotiate it with my nephew. They didn't negotiate with Tucker. You know, make them pay.
LAVANDERA: Menchaca, Private 1st Class Thomas Tucker, and Specialist David Babineau were attacked by insurgents last Friday. Babineau was killed. Witnesses say Menchaca and Tucker were taken hostage. From the moment they disappeared, Menchaca's brother struggled to imagined what the young soldiers must be battling.
CESAR VASQUEZ, BROTHER OF PRIVATE 1ST CLASS KRISTIAN MENCHACA: I was mentally preparing myself, you know, for -- for bad news, but I never thought that he would actually get kidnapped. I mean, one thing is being killed. Another thing is getting taking by terrorists and getting tortured every day.
LAVANDERA: In Oregon, supportive neighbors in Thomas Tucker's hometown have put up ribbons and messages for his family. Tucker's parents released a statement saying they realized he gained a much larger family through this ordeal than he had when he left home to help free the Iraqi people and protect his country from the threat of terrorism.
Menchaca's family says they are focusing on helping Kristian's mother and young wife cope with the loss.
M. VASQUEZ: You pray for tranquillity in among yourself. And, you know, you have to accept reality, even though I didn't want to at the beginning. But you have to. And we pray.
LAVANDERA: Menchaca's uncle, Mario Vasquez, wants the killers hunted down and punished.
M. VASQUEZ: I hope they are still looking, you know? Used those 8,000 soldiers they were using to look for my nephew and Mr. Tucker, use that 8,000 soldiers to find who was responsible for this, and to -- and to hurt whoever gets in the way.
LAVANDERA: Kristian Menchaca's family says that after he would leave the Army, he had plans and dreams of becoming a Border Patrol agent. He leaves behind a grieving mother, an extended family here in Houston, in Brownsville, and in West Texas as well, as well as a wife that he married just a few weeks before he was deployed to Iraq -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Our deepest condolences to the families.
Ed, thank you very much for that.
Let's get some more now on what exactly happened.
We will turn to our senior Pentagon correspondent, Jamie McIntyre.
The details are very, very grisly, specifically the allegation that the new supposed leader of al Qaeda in Iraq was directly responsible. What are you hearing, Jamie?
JAMIE MCINTYRE, CNN SENIOR PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, that's the claim made on an Islamist Web site that traditionally broadcasts messages from the insurgency, the claim, that the replacement for Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a man named as Abu al-Masri, personally killed these two soldiers.
That's the claim. The U.S. military is not verifying that. And they are not releasing many details about the deaths, except to say that the bodies suffered -- quote -- "severe trauma," and that DNA tests were needed to complete the final identification process, an indication the bodies were not identifiable by -- by -- in the way they were found.
They were found last night, just about dusk, along a road in Yusufiyah. But the bodies had been booby-trapped. And the route to the bodies had been lined with IEDs, explosive devices. And, so, the military had to wait sort of overnight before they could recover the bodies and send them back to the United States for their final identification -- Wolf.
BLITZER: Jamie, as you know, this is an extremely dangerous area south of Baghdad, Yusufiyah, the Triangle of Death, as it's called.
These three soldiers, one soldier who was killed in the incident, the two that went missing, now dead, what were they doing at a checkpoint presumably in one of the most dangerous of areas of Iraq by themselves?
MCINTYRE: That's the big question now, and it's one that the military is asking itself, and one that a military official confirmed to CNN is being looked into.
You know, there were -- there were reports initially that maybe there had been a diversionary attack. Now they believe that the -- the three soldiers were essentially there by themselves, as you said, in a very dangerous and vulnerable position. That's going to be part of the investigation.
BLITZER: Jamie McIntyre, at the Pentagon, thanks very much.