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U.S., Iraqi troops to shift to Baghdad

July 25, 2006

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 25, 2006) – A recent surge of bombings, murders and kidnappings in Baghdad has led U.S. commanders in Iraq to shift forces to deal with insurgent threats there.

Multinational Force Iraq Commander Gen. George W. Casey Jr. will shift forces already in Iraq to Baghdad, according to Gen. John P. Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command.

“There is a very serious effort to make sure that it is not just weighted with additional U.S. capability, but also additional Iraqi capability,” Abizaid said. “Clearly, it will require that we move whatever combat power that the commanders on the ground there think is appropriate, whether Iraqi or American. And I think it will be a combination of both.”

Iraqi soldiers and police are continually growing to serve at the forefront of operations, according to Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, MNFI spokesman, “to make their capital safer, to set the stage for their capital to emerge as a center of not violence and strife, but some day for business and learning, for commerce and for culture.”

Pentagon officials added that Casey has the leeway and experience to do whatever he thinks right.

“It’s a dynamic security environment – things change all the time,” Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whiteman said yesterday. “It is a testament to the way the United States military operates that it is a flexible and adaptable force.”

In the past week, Iraqi security forces have worked with coalition forces to quell violence in 19 operations, 17 of them inside Baghdad, Caldwell added.

There are 127,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq, and Abizaid’s statement does not mean that number will rise or fall.

The rotation of U.S. troops into Iraq will not change, DoD officials stressed. This year’s rotations include some 92,000 U.S. troops, and units to deploy were notified November 2005 or June 20.

(Editor’s note: Compiled from Armed Forces Press Service releases by Jim Garamone and Gerry J. Gilmore.)