THE US: Struggling to keep up troop levels in the absence of significant military help from its allies, the Pentagon has announced it is calling up 43,000 Reserve and National Guard soldiers for service in Iraq or Afghanistan.
This is part of a major deployment aimed at bringing home almost all US troops who have been sent overseas to conflict zones for more than a year. The Pentagon also hopes to reduce the number of US troops in Iraq from the current 132,000 to 105,000 by next May, according to Marine Gen Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The planned reduction comes despite calls from prominent members of Congress for an increase in troop levels to ensure victory over the growing insurgency in Iraq.
The Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, told reporters yesterday that not one commander in the field had asked for more US troops and that a reduction in troop levels would be made possible by a steady growth in Iraqi security forces. He said there were now 118,000 Iraqi security forces of various types, making up the second largest contingent of the US-led coalition.
His figure has taken defence analysts by surprise. Last week he estimated the number of trained Iraqi forces at 100,000, while the week before, the US administrator in Iraq, Mr Paul Bremer, put the number at 85,000, including police and oil pipeline guards.
Gen Pace said the number of trained Iraqis would reach 170,000 by May.
There are 154,000 US civilian-soldiers on active service worldwide with the Reserves and National Guard, of whom 60,000 serve in Iraq or Kuwait. Their call-up has become necessary to relieve an over-stretched professional army.
In the rotation announced yesterday, 20,000 Marines - usually kept in reserve for major combat operations - have been notified to prepare for service in Iraq. This is the first time Marines have been deployed long-term since the Vietnam war. The Bush administration had planned to have a much smaller force in the region by the end of 2003 but has failed to get new commitments for an international Iraq force, despite a UN resolution last month.
Republican senator Mr John McCain, in a scathing critique of the administration's war planning, said the US should send at least 15,000 more troops to Iraq now or risk "the most serious American defeat on the global stage since Vietnam". Mr McCain, a strong supporter of the war and a Vietnam veteran, said: "Victory can be our only exit strategy." His remarks reflect concern among Republican supporters of the war that troop levels are being kept down to help President Bush's re-election campaign next year.