Pentagon sending more US Marines to Iraq

9.30am

WASHINGTON - Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has directed the Marine Corps to send nearly 3,000 additional Marines to Iraq next year, bolstering the next wave of US troops being deployed there amid an increasingly bloody guerrilla war, US defence officials said on Wednesday.

The Marines will send three additional battalions, along with support units, to Iraq as part of the troop rotation plan for early 2004, officials said. Pentagon planners earlier had said the United States envisioned 105,000 troops in Iraq next May -- down from the current 130,000 -- but these additional Marines will bring the number up to about 108,000.

A defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the decision to send additional troops beyond the number announced when the Pentagon unveiled the future troop rotation plans on Nov. 6 represented a fine-tuning of the plan, and was not a reaction to a changing security environment in Iraq.

"This is not 'the sky is falling,"' the official said. "This is more planning. This is a minor tweak in the plan."

The defence official said the three additional battalions of Marines would number about 2,700 or 2,800. Another official said the numbers could go higher. A standard US infantry battalion generally numbers about 900 troops.

The rotation plans envision a shrinking US force in Iraq in the first half of 2004, but the official also said the number of troops actually deployed will depend on the security situation. President George W. Bush and Rumsfeld both have not ruled out an increase in US troops in Iraq if American commanders there believe additional forces were needed.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq