Posted on 07/27/2006 5:54:38 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
The Pentagon has extended the tours of about 3,500 US troops in Iraq for 120 days in a move that dashed hopes of a reduction in the US force this year in the face of surging sectarian violence.
The Pentagon also identified four other brigades with 25,000 troops for deployment to Iraq late this year and early next, enough to maintain the US force at about 130,000 troops for a year.
"Additionally, the Secretary of Defence approved a request by the commander of Multi-National Forces-Iraq (MNF-I) to extend the deployment of the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team operating in Iraq for up to 120 additional days," it said.
The move indicated that US commanders have effectively given up hopes for even a gradual reduction in the US force this year on account of a bitter insurgency and spiralling sectarian violence.
The Alaska-based 172nd Stryker Brigade already had begun rotating out of Iraq when the order came to stay put.
Army officials say decision will be made on a case-by-case basis on troops in a battalion that is in the process of redeploying.
"They're still trying to get as many soldiers as possible," said an Army official. "It looks like it will be 3,500."
A Pentagon spokesman initially said about 4,000 troops were affected.
The Pentagon's policy is to keep troops in Iraqi for no more than 365 days at a time.
But in the past commanders have kept some troops longer during crucial junctures such as during a Shiite uprising in 2004.
"If you extend somebody, is there some disappointment that they won't be home when they thought they would be home? Sure," US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.
"But as I say this is a professional military, and they are doing a superb job."
He says when an Army unit was extended for several months two years ago, "they handled it in a professional way, and got on with life."
The reality of it all is that we'll have over 50,000 troops there for the next 50 years at least...Iraq is never going to be stable enough to guard itself from Iran...If we're there Iran won't move in...
I'm not really all that keen on that, but I guess it's better than having Iran do a two step into Iraq and have even more influence of the oil production...
Welcome to Korea.
But South Korea has fared a lot better than South Vietnam did.
Just found out tonite that a distant cousin of mine is part of the brigade that is having it's tour extended. His family is quite disappointed and now has to figure out what to do with the plane tickets they bought to go see him when he got back.
I agree,this was handled poorly. My son had his bags packed to leave in 24 hours when he was told to bring in his men and announce they were being extended and moving south. When he called me today, he didn't know how long the extension was for. I think the news media found out more details than he was given by his superiors. They could have at least been told a week or two ago an extension was under consideration. This seems like poor management to me, a knee jerk reaction. Maybe it is a correct reaction to the situation in Baghdad, but it should have been better planned.
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