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U.S. says troop numbers in Iraq at 56,000
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Iraq, America and hired guns
In the often perverse logic that has driven America’s war in Iraq, as U.S. soldiers are withdrawn the number of private security contractors is set to rise, writes Bernd Debusmann. Commentary
U.S. says troop numbers in Iraq at 56,000
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Brigadier General Nickolas P. Tooliatos, deputy commanding general for First Theater Sustainment Command in Kuwait, salutes as the last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq and cross the border into Kuwait in this August 18, 2010 video frame grab.
Credit: Reuters/Department of Defense/Handout
By Ross Colvin
WASHINGTON |
Wed Aug 18, 2010 11:33pm EDT
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. troop strength in Iraq is 56,000, a senior Obama administration official said on Wednesday evening, correcting his earlier statement the troop level was down to the 50,000 level Washington has targeted for the end of the month.
"I had incorrect information," the official said.
NBC News reported earlier on Wednesday night that the last U.S. combat troops had left Iraq. An NBC reporter traveling with the 4th Stryker Brigade drove through the night and arrived in Kuwait just before 4 a.m. local time on Thursday, with TV footage showing the convoy rolling through the border gates and the gate shutting as the last vehicle passed through.
That report set off a flurry of media interest in the drawdown, which will be a milestone in the seven-year war launched under Republican President George W. Bush.
But it appeared that even if a combat brigade was on its way out of the country, it did not mean the U.S. combat mission was ending ahead of target.
The Obama administration has said it expects to draw down troop levels to 50,000 by August 31, ending the combat mission and leaving those who remain to train Iraqi armed forces and police units.
Meeting that deadline will mean President Barack Obama is on target to keep his assurances to Americans that all U.S. forces will be out of Iraq by the end of 2011, even as he struggles with a difficult conflict in Afghanistan. Obama faces a war-weary U.S. public as his fellow Democrats seek to hold on to their control of the U.S. Congress in elections in November.
Bush launched the U.S.-led invasion in 2003 that ousted Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. But the war became unpopular among Americans as U.S. deaths mounted. As of Wednesday, the Defense Department said there were 4,419 U.S. military deaths since the invasion.
While violence has dipped sharply since the height of sectarian warfare from 2006-2007, Iraq is still extremely fragile and its leaders have not resolved a number of politically explosive issues that could easily trigger renewed fighting.
Obama has said not a single U.S. service member will remain in Iraq come January 1, 2012, and with opinion polls showing Americans tired of nearly a decade of war in Afghanistan and Iraq, any decision to extend U.S. military involvement in Iraq would be enormously risky for Obama, who is up for re-election in 2012.
He would almost certainly face a backlash from Democrats in Congress and from the left wing of his party, which is already disenchanted with him.
The war in Iraq has gone on longer than the U.S. Civil War, World War One and World War Two.
(Editing by Peter Cooney and Philip Barbara)
World
Comments
See All Comments (4) | Post Comment
Aug 18, 2010 9:01pm EDT
I truly hope this is the real end of this war. I am sure that we will have a military presence there for some time to come (look at the Koreas) but I can live with that.
The end to the Bush atrocities is upon us.
Grant_X
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Aug 18, 2010 9:48pm EDT
From one soldier who returned last month. thank you Mr. President for keeping your word and getting us home before the holidays.
dushenko
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Aug 18, 2010 10:08pm EDT
I want the $3 trillion we spent in Iraq back
STORYBURNthere
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Aug 19, 2010 3:11am EDT
Iraq’s military is a glorified police force and lacks tanks, APCs, helicopters, fighter jets, air transport, artillery, destroyers and other navy ships, etc., etc., and therefore not a real military force at all — due to lack of equipment its military once had in abundance and were not destroyed during the invasion.
So what the heck happened to all this equipment? Who took it — was it sold it internationally as I suspect? Where did it all go? There should be more than enough to equip a military to provide internal security and protection from being invaded by neighbors.
Who profited from all this missing equipment? Is it still lying around the desert waiting for people to dust it off?
It was probably sold off but by whom? The Americans were the only ones in the position to do it and, if so, to whom? Who exactly earned the tens, if not hundreds of millions, possibly billions. Who? Who? Who?
RudyHaugeneder
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