Officers See Need For Bigger Iraq Force

BAGHDAD, Nov. 21 -- Senior U.S. military commanders in Iraq say it is increasingly likely they will need a further increase in combat forces to put down remaining areas of resistance in the country.

Convinced that the recent battle for Fallujah has significantly weakened insurgent ranks, commanders here have devised plans to press the offensive into neighborhoods where rebels have either taken refuge after fleeing Fallujah or were already deeply entrenched.

But the forces available for these intensified operations have become limited by the demands of securing Fallujah and overseeing the massive reconstruction effort there -- demands that senior U.S. military officers say are likely to tie up a substantial number of Marines and Army troops for weeks.
etc.......
www.washingtonpost.com...


I imagine I am the only one here surprised by this. Seems as though I recall reading in October that everything was under control and they had enough boots on the ground and there were only a handful of insurgents. I believe Rummy said that like a 1000 or so. Criminals.


" Although U.S. military officials have reported 1,600 or more enemy fighters killed in Fallujah, no key leaders of the insurgency were either killed or captured, according to senior officers here. Many insurgents who fled the city either before or during the battle are now thought by U.S. commanders to be looking for opportunities to regroup and mount new attacks.

"Our assessment is that the insurgency remains viable," a senior military intelligence officer here said. "One of the things we see the insurgents doing is moving to areas where we don't have a lot of presence."


I could have sworn we broke their backbone a week ago. Like I said I imagine I'm the only one here imagining all these things

" At the same time, officers cautioned against expecting anything on the scale of Fallujah, which involved more than 10,000 U.S. troops and about 2,500 Iraqi forces.

"They're not going to be big operations like Fallujah, because there's no place else in Iraq where the situation is like what it was there," one commander said.


Yeah well this true, I know for a fact the rest of the country loves us and we have it totally under control. I read it last week. Somewhere.

Andy Rooney

How are they going to have elections if we need more military over there? I wonder if there is something they aren't telling us