Digging In For A Fight

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The official estimates of how many troops would be required going forward have been wobbling for a year, but until last week the trend line was always heading down. A year ago, U.S. Central Command was saying the 150,000 troops needed for the initial invasion could be reduced to 30,000 by last September. Then by Christmas the new goal was to reduce the force to 105,000 by spring. Now, concedes Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the arrow is pointing up. "The debate is about whether to keep 135,000 troops there or to add more," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. Warning that tensions may only grow with the approach of June 30, the day the U.S. plans to return sovereignty to Iraq, General John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command, told the New York Times that 135,000 may not suffice. "We're going to make sure we have the right forces in place to do the job that needs to be done," he said.

For starters, the U.S. will have to take up the slack left by departing allies. When Spain's new Socialist Prime Minister held firm on his campaign promise to withdraw his 1,300 troops, Honduras and the Dominican Republic, which rely on the Spanish for command and control, decided to bug out as well. Thailand threatened to withdraw its aid workers if attacked, and even faithful Australia is down to 850 of the 2,000 troops it originally shipped over last year. Secretary of State Colin Powell called leaders of roughly half the 34 coalition countries to try to prevent further defections.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi police and security forces to whom the U.S. had hoped to turn over more responsibility were proving barely competent. U.S. officers on the ground in Fallujah, Najaf and other hot spots warned of a level of training and coordination by rebel bands that kept U.S. troops tied down. Plus, there is no slack in U.S. force strength. "Everybody's committed," says an Army officer who has tracked U.S. troop levels in Iraq over the past year. "If civil war erupts between the Kurds and Sunnis, who goes there? There is nobody. How is it possible we are fighting a war and there is no available reserve?"