WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 - Army planning for Iraq currently assumes keeping about 100,000 United States troops there through March 2006, a senior Army officer said Friday. The plans reflect the concerns of some Army officials that stabilizing Iraq could be more difficult than originally planned.
The officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, warned that maintaining a force of that size in Iraq beyond then would cause the Army to "really start to feel the pain" from stresses on overtaxed active-duty, Reserve and National Guard troops.
The officer was offering a senior-level Army view on the issue, but the size of any future American force in Iraq will ultimately be decided by President Bush and a new provisional Iraqi government that is expected to assume control from an American administrator by June. The Army plans nevertheless give a view of top-level Pentagon thinking about the size of the American force that may be needed in Iraq well beyond the time next year when Washington expects to turn political control of Iraq back to Iraqi leaders.
Mr. Bush has said he will be guided by the military's judgment in deciding troop levels. Military officials have said they will base their recommendations largely on security conditions in Iraq and the extent Iraqis are trained to fill missions now carried out by American troops. . . .
Planners at the United States Central Command in Tampa, Fla., which has responsibility for military operations in Iraq, closely watch the specific troop requirements in Iraq. For that reason, Gen. John P. Abizaid of the Army, who heads the Central Command, will probably have the most influential voice in deciding future troop levels in Iraq.
"John Abizaid is the one who's going to tell us at several points down the road over the next couple of years what he thinks he's going to need," the senior Army officer said.
Even so, the views of senior Army and Marine Corps officers involved in the planning in Washington are important because those officers track and respond to what ground commanders in Iraq say they require.
Just how large the American military presence in Iraq will be in the future depends not only on negotiations with Iraqi political leaders but also on the level of violence in Iraq and how quickly newly trained Iraqis can take over security, American officials say.
Teams of Army Special Forces are now training Iraqis in an accelerated program to fill out the ranks of a civil defense corps, the equivalent of a militia.
The Iraqi militiamen are already conducting joint patrols with American forces, and General Abizaid has said he envisions the militia over time assuming a more prominent and independent role in attacking Baath Party supporters, foreign fighters and other insurgents who carry out ambushes and roadside bombings against American forces.
To combat the insurgents in Iraq, General Abizaid and his subordinate commanders have said they need better intelligence.
To that end, Stephen A. Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, said Friday that the Defense Department had instructed the military services to beef up their human intelligence capacities to address unmet needs in Iraq.
"We're a little short on the human side, there's no denying that, so we're in the process of adding to the number of people who may be involved," Dr. Cambone said at a breakfast with defense writers. He did not provide specifics, but indicated that the changes were part of a broader effort to reinforce American intelligence capacity in Iraq to support the campaign against insurgents.
Dr. Cambone said that the lack of sufficient human intelligence capabilities in the military services had become apparent during operations in Iraq, but that it dated from cuts made during the early 1990's. He said the main focus of the American military effort in Iraq would continue to be primarily on "former regime loyalists who are trying to drive out the coalition."
Exactly what kind of relationship the American military has with a new Iraqi provisional government was discussed on Thursday at a meeting of General Abizaid, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other senior military officials.
One official involved that said that the internal discussions were at a preliminary stage, and that General Abizaid would make recommendations in coming weeks. "We're looking at lots of different possible arrangements," the official said.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/22/politics/22MILI.html> ***** -- Yoshie
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