Army says 100,000 needed in Iraq till '06

WASHINGTON -- Army planning for Iraq currently assumes keeping about 100,000 U.S. 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 ultimately will 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.

Bush has said he would be guided by the military's judgment in deciding troop levels. Military officials have said they would base their recommendations largely on security conditions in Iraq and the extent Iraqis are trained to fill missions now carried out by American troops.

The Pentagon has said that it would reduce the American military presence in Iraq to 105,000 by May from 130,000 now. While some civilian defense officials have raised the possibility of shrinking the force even more next year, if circumstances allow, the senior Army officer said Army planners are assuming that the number of American forces in Iraq will likely stay the same when the military begins its one-year troop rotation in March 2005. That force would presumably remain in Iraq until March 2006.

"What we're looking at doing is making some assumptions with the Marines about sustaining the type of force we're going to need," said the officer, who spoke to a small group of military reporters. "As you look at this, it wouldn't seem prudent right now to plan on using a force of less than what is there now, for March '05."

Many military planners are looking at future troop levels in Iraq, for different reasons. Army and Marine Corps officials must plan for worst-case scenarios, since their services will provide the vast majority of forces in future rotations. Planners on the military's Joint Staff in Washington examine how forces are allocated for hot spots around the world.

One senior officer said, for example, that planning for the force to enter Iraq in early 2005 was under way but was focused on which units might go rather than on a specific overall number of troops.

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