Pentagon Sending More Marines to Iraq in 2004

[bluestateguy]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has directed the Marine Corps to send nearly 3,000 additional Marines to Iraq (news - web sites) next year, bolstering the next wave of U.S. troops being deployed there amid an increasingly bloody guerrilla war, U.S. defense officials said on Wednesday.

The Marines will send three additional battalions, along with support units, to Iraq as part of the troop rotation plan for early 2004, officials said. Pentagon (news - web sites) planners earlier had said the United States envisioned 105,000 troops in Iraq next May -- down from the current 130,000 -- but these additional Marines will bring the number up to about 108,000.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=564&e=3&u=/nm/20031126/ts_nm/iraq_usa_troops_dc_2

[DUreader]

1. Marines are not peace keepers, so where's the next invasion?

Iran, Syria or Saudi?

[gratuitous]

2. More death for and from the American wehrmacht

I like the article's credulous tone that the addition of these 3,000 Marines won't affect the previously announced draw down numbers, so that the 130,000 troops now there are actually going to be reduced to 105,000 next May.

Dum, dum, dum-dum, dum.

[Journeyman]

3. But we've been told for much of the past week . . .

by Bremer and others within the malAdministration and the Pentagon, that our present efforts to reduce attacks against us have been very successful. If they are, in fact, keeping down the total number of attacks, why the need for additional troops, especially Marines, whose function is typically offense and don't ordinarily engage in police activities?

[54anickel]

4. Someone's gonna get it. They are also pulling troops out of

other bases.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=241837

[Gloria]

5. Here's how the South Koreans analyze the situation.....

From the current World Media Watch....

2//The Chosun Ilbo Updated Nov.25,2003 18:16 KST

http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200311/200311250016.html



PENTAGON DENIES PLAN TO MOVE TROOPS OUT OF KOREA

by Yoo Yong-won

The Pentagon has officially denied a report by the Washington Times on Tuesday saying that the U.S. military is considering a plan to transfer some of its troops in South Korea to Iraq and Afghanistan, and to disband the U.N. Command in the country. The Pentagon said that no discussion or decision was made on a U.S. troop reduction in Korea, and that any realignment of U.S. troops here would be made under close consultation with the Korean government.



For several practical reasons, however, it is becoming more likely that some of the U.S. forces in Korea are to be sent to Iraq. The U.S. Army currently has 485,000 troops in 10 Infantry divisions. Of the U.S. Army forces, nine divisions have been or are scheduled to be sent to Iraq or Afghanistan. The United States already sent four divisions to Iraq, and is planning to replace three of them by February or March next year. In Afghanistan, one division has been deployed, but is also planned to be replaced with another division by next February.



Only the U.S. Army’s 2nd Infantry Division is being excluded from the assignment, because the United States takes the North Korean military threat seriously, and has no wish to compromise its promise of security for South Korea. Yet it remains unclear how long the United States will be able to keep its promise, at a time when more troops are urgently needed in Iraq. For the first time since World War II, the United States is mobilizing National Guard units for Iraqi operations. To make things worse, the planned troop dispatch by South Korea is falling short of U.S. expectations.



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