Disagreement on Iraq Troop Cuts

Military leaders in the Pentagon are increasingly at odds with commanders on the ground in Iraq over the timing and number of U.S. troops that may be sent home from that country later this year. Iraq commander Gen. David Petraeus is said to want planned troop reductions to pause briefly in the summer for a period of strategic assessment before making a final recommendation to President Bush on whether they should go forward as scheduled. But the Pentagon does not yet see the need to delay reductions, and is worried that the long tours of duty necessitated by force levels in Iraq are causing a strain on the military.

Also complicating the picture for U.S. military planners is the situation in Afghanistan. The Pentagon recently announced an increased deployment of 3,200 Marines to that theater in the war on terror in an effort to stem a growing cross-border Taliban insurgency. Commanders in Afghanistan would like some battle tested troops from Iraq shifted to Afghanistan to assist Afghan National Army forces in bringing the entire country under control.

Marine Commandant Gen. James Conway said Friday that the Marines would shoulder the load of the additional troop deployments in Afghanistan for the time being, but cautioned that it was only a temporary situation.

"We'll do this through the rest of the year because it's important. We can't have one foot in Afghanistan and one foot in Iraq. I believe that would be (analogous) to having one foot in the canoe and one foot on the bank. You can't be there long."

The U.S. troop level in Iraq is set to drawdown to 15 brigades by the end of July. It is then that Petraeus wants to hold off further reductions for a time. U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, who along with Petraeus will make a presentation to Congress on progress in Iraq this April, shares that view. Crocker says that the decision on troop levels affects more than just the military situation in Iraq.

"It's not simply assessing what conditions are with respect to the status of Iraqi security forces, sectarian tensions, level of violence as they are currently. You've got to take it one dimension further, and that's to ask yourself: How will any U.S. redeployment change those dynamics?"

This argument, such as it is, between the Pentagon and the field commanders is likely to be won y Petraeus. It is his brilliant strategy and complete command of the situation in Iraq over the past year that has led the Pentagon to the point that troop reductions can occur at all. Petraeus has the full trust and confidence of the president, based on his performance both in the field and in front of a hostile Congress last fall. It is a good be that Petraeus will get whatever he asks for from the Administration, and that the military brass in the Pentagon, by publicly airing their differences with him, is futilely trying to influence the debate.