> [do they really believe this, or are they playing games with expectations?]
It's a real possibility. It may well turn out that they really do need those troops that were originally scheduled to go through Turkey. That surprise, the old school was right all along: precision weapons are a supplement to, but not a substitute for, having enough troops. That Afghanistan didn't change everything. And that having more than you think you'll need because your pre-war estimates might be completely wrong is elementary prudence learned from experience and not, as the chickenhawks would have it, old maidism.
But who knows what tomorrow will bring. War, like the market, is extremely unpredictable in the short term.
Michael