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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jlallen who wrote (446597)	8/22/2003 1:29:41 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 769670

Unfortunately, troops are at risk when at war....fact of life....the situation improves slowly in Iraq....but it is improving.... I know you don't like the liberal press but even FOX is questioning how things are going in Iraq. The situation is worsening, not improving in Vietnam, I mean Iraq. *********************************************************** usatoday.com Pentagon resists push for more troops By Dave Moniz, Tom Squitieri and Bill Nichols USA TODAY WASHINGTON — Despite increasing violence in Iraq and a growing call for the Bush administration to increase the U.S. military presence there, the Pentagon seems unlikely to raise force levels anytime soon. Top officials are rejecting demands for more U.S. troops, and the Pentagon might have trouble raising troop strength even if it was determined to. The military — particularly the Army — is stretched thin supporting the roughly 140,000 U.S. troops there. More than half the Army's combat force is deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and South Korea. Committing more to Iraq could leave U.S. forces low in the event of a conflict elsewhere. U.S. allies have been unwilling or unable to provide enough new peacekeeping troops to ease the pressure on U.S. soldiers. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. John Abizaid, head of U.S. Central Command, said Thursday that they have no plans to increase U.S. troop levels. "The number of troops, boots per square inch, is not the issue," Abizaid said. "The real issue, by the way, is intelligence. You have to have good solid intelligence in conflicts such as this ... and we're working hard on it." Nonetheless, a growing chorus of U.S. senators, retired military officers and political strategists is arguing that it's time for the Bush administration to expand the occupation force in the aftermath of attacks on oil and water pipelines and the deadly bombing of U.N. headquarters Tuesday. "The fact of the matter is there is a lot of stuff going on over there, and we probably need to consider a quick reinforcement of some sort with our coalition partners," says Bill Nash, a retired Army major general who once led U.S. peacekeeping forces in Bosnia. Nash, who advocates sending up to 20,000 more troops right away, has been joined by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, and retired Army general Barry McCaffrey, a prominent commander during the Gulf War in 1991, in calling for a bigger occupation force. At the United Nations on Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell stepped up the effort to draw more allied troops into Iraq by urging a new U.N. Security Council resolution to widen the international peacekeeping role. But the push appeared to be foundering because potential supporters want the United States to give up some authority in Iraq to the United Nations — a concession U.S. officials say President Bush and his key national security advisers continue to resist. Many of the countries to whom the United States must appeal for a new resolution and for troops — such as France, Germany and Russia — were opposed to the war in Iraq and have no intention of sending their troops unless they have a say in how the operation is run. Meanwhile, the rising violence in Iraq may be convincing some nations that they should keep their troops home. Japan was to send about 1,000 soldiers, despite that nation's constitutional ban on its troops being in combat. But government spokesman Yasuo Fukuda suggested to reporters that the rising violence is creating a "delicate" situation that could prevent the deployment. Thailand has pledged 450-500 troops. "I have instructed the military to assess the situation and suitability concerning safety and their readiness before setting a departure date," Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Thursday. Contributing: Moniz and Squitieri reported from Washington, Nichols from the United Nations.