Bremer says troop levels too low in Iraq
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Washington -- A statement by the former US administrator in Iraq that the Bush administration &quot;never had enough troops on the ground&quot; while he was the top civilian there entered immediately into the growing election debate about the war.
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The U.S. commander of a new offensive north of Baghdad, reclaiming insurgent territory day by day, said Sunday his Iraqi partners may be too weak to hold onto the gains. The Iraqi military does not even have enough ammunition, said Brig. Gen. Mick Bednarek: "They're not quite up to the job yet."
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President George W. Bush admitted on Thursday his troop buildup in Iraq had made limited progress but said he would wait for a September security report before considering a change of course.
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Gen. David H. Petraeus said that by next summer the U.S. should be able to reduce its troop strength in Iraq to the level it was at before the recent increase.
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WASHINGTON - Members of the military and their families say the Bush administration underestimated the number of troops needed in Iraq and put too much pressure on inadequately trained National Guard and reserve forces, according to a poll released Saturday.    The National Annenberg Election Survey found that 62 percent in the military sample said the administration didn't send an adequate number of troops to Iraq...
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L. Paul Bremer assessed the first phase of the U.S. occupation by saying, "We never had enough troops on the ground."
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The extra troops that Iraq promised to send into Baghdad in a new U.S.-Iraqi military buildup are arriving on schedule but in inadequate numbers, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday.
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CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq  - The U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said on Monday it was too early to judge whether a Baghdad security crackdown was successful because the last of five extra brigades had yet to be deployed.
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The U.S. intervention in Iraq was  hampered early on by a lack of adequate forces and efforts to  contain looting after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, according  to the former U.S. administrator in Iraq.
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In a move that could portend a strategy change, the commander of U.S. forces in northern Iraq said Sunday he has proposed reducing his troop levels and shifting next year to missions focused less on direct combat.
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President George W. Bush on Thursday ordered gradual troop reductions in Iraq but defied calls for a dramatic change of course, telling skeptical Americans the U.S. military role there will stretch beyond his presidency.
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WASHINGTON - The White House staunchly defended its Iraq policy Tuesday as new questions emerged about President Bush's prewar decisions and postwar planning: An impending weapons report undercut the administration's main rationale for the war, and the former head of the American occupation said the United States had too few troops in Iraq after the invasion.    Four weeks before Election Day, Democrat John Kerry pounced on the acknowledgment by former Iraq administrator Paul Bremer that the United States had "paid a big price" for insufficient troop levels...
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Defense officials are not ruling out the possibility that they will need more U.S. troops to secure January's elections in increasingly violent Iraq, but believe Iraqi and perhaps international troops may be able to do the job instead, a top general said Wednesday.
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Boosting U.S. troop levels in Iraq by 21,500 would create major logistical hurdles for the Army and Marine Corps, which are short thousands of vehicles, armor kits and other equipment needed to supply the extra forces, U.S. officials said.
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By July, the number of U.S. troops in Iraq should be down to about 130,000, according to the U.S. commander in Baghdad, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus -- about the same number as before President Bush sent additional combat forces there last spring.
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The number of UK troops in Iraq by the end of 2007 is expected to be lower "by thousands", the defence secretary says.
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Critical to the war effort in Iraq, the National Guard and Army Reserve are drawing fewer enlistees. Will the troop shortage worsen?