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Reserve Troops Sent To Iraq's West
(David S. Cloud, New York Times, May 30, 2006)
The top American commander in Iraq has decided to move reserve troops now deployed in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar Province in western Iraq to help quell a rise in insurgent attacks there, two American officials said Monday. . . . Although some soldiers from the 3,500-member brigade in Kuwait have moved into Iraq in recent months, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. has decided to send in the remainder of the unit after consultations with Iraqi officials in recent days, the officials said. . . . The confirmation that the number of American forces in Iraq would grow came on a day of soaring violence in Baghdad. . . . The movement of the brigade comes as several senior American officials in Iraq have begun to raise doubts about whether security conditions there will permit significant troop reductions in coming months. . . . "General Casey has been working with the government of Iraq, and he has asked permission to draw forward more forces that will be operating in Anbar," a senior military official said. The officials were granted anonymity because they were not authorized to talk officially about continuing troop movements. . . . The brigade comes from the Army's First Armored Division, which has been deployed in Kuwait for months as a reserve in case conditions in Iraq deteriorated. One official said the additional troops would be deployed at multiple hotspots in Anbar Province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad. . . . At least some of the troops are likely to be sent to the city of Ramadi, where a Pennsylvania National Guard brigade that has been trying to quell a surge in violence in the city along with Marine units is scheduled to rotate out this month. . . . How much the decision to deploy the entire reserve brigade from Kuwait will increase the total number of American troops in Iraq and for how long was unclear. Nor is it clear how the additional troops will be employed as commanders seek to quell the violence in Anbar in coming months.

posted by LoZo 9:42 AM