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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: longnshort who wrote (316105)	12/20/2006 8:49:16 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1573088

U.S. considers more troops for Iraq By Tabassum Zakaria Reuters Tuesday, December 19, 2006; 8:45 PM WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush is weighing a short-term U.S. troop increase in Iraq, his spokesman said on Tuesday as he denied reports of a rift between the White House and resistant Pentagon chiefs. With the White House predicting Washington will spend more than $2 billion a week on Iraq well into next year, a senior official declined to speculate on the cost of an extra 20,000 troops -- a figure U.S. media say Bush is weighing. A temporary infusion of forces into Iraq was an idea the high-powered Iraq Study Group considered acceptable in its report, which also recommended Bush withdraw most U.S. forces from combat there by early 2008. "It's something that's being explored," White House spokesman Tony Snow told reporters. "The president has asked people to take a look at things and he continues to consult with the Joint Chiefs. I am not going to get into what the Joint Chiefs have or have not said." Bush, his public support over the war falling as U.S. and Iraqi casualty figures mount, is expected to announce a new Iraq strategy in January. Snow rejected a Washington Post report of a rift with the Pentagon. "I think people are trying to create a fight between the president and the Joint Chiefs where one does not exist," he said. In an interview with the Post on Tuesday, Bush said he plans to expand the size of the U.S. military to deal with the long-term fight against terrorism. The paper said the increase was for the broader fight against Islamic extremists around the world rather than specifically for the conflict in Iraq. "I'm inclined to believe that we do need to increase our troops -- the Army, the Marines," Bush said according to the Post. Bush gave no estimates on how many more troops would be needed, but his call came less than a week after the Army's chief of staff told lawmakers that the Army, under strain from Iraq war commitments, must keep growing to avoid breaking the active-duty forces. More than 2,900 U.S. troops and tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed since the U.S.-led invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 2003. U.S. Army medical experts said suicides among U.S. soldiers in Iraq doubled in 2005 compared with 2004 while a Pentagon report Monday said violence in Iraq was at record levels. "FATALLY WEAKENED" CONTINUED 1 2 Next > washingtonpost.com