US set to send more troops to Iraq

More US troops could be sent to Iraq and other US forces could stay longer than planned to deal with the latest surge in violence, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said.

While Rumsfeld insisted that the fighting was not spinning out of control, his remarks were the clearest signal yet that US officials were likely to increase the overall number of troops in Iraq nearly a year after President Bush declared major combat in the country completed.

General John Abizaid, the US commander of the Iraq campaign, has not decided whether, or how, to increase the American military presence in Iraq.

The focus of discussion was on whether to extend the tours of duty for some of the US. Troops scheduled to leave by next month after spending a year there.

“You can be certain that if they want more troops, we will sign deployment orders so that they’ll have the troops they need,” Rumsfeld said at a Pentagon news conference with Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman General Richard Myers.

The violence in Iraq has claimed nearly three dozen American lives since last weekend. Rumsfeld said it was the work of a few “thugs, gangs and terrorists” and was not a popular uprising over the U.S.-led occupation.

“The numbers of people that are involved in those battles are relatively small,” Rumsfeld said.

“And there’s nothing like an army or a major large elements of hundreds of people trying to overthrow or to change the situation. You have a mixture of a small number of terrorists, a small number of militias, coupled with some demonstrations and some lawlessness.”

The continuing rotation of forces in Iraq gives American forces an advantage by having about 20,000 more troops than would otherwise be there.

“We’re taking advantage of that increase, and we will likely be managing the pace of the redeployments to allow those seasoned troops with experience and relationships with the local populations to see the current situation through,” Rumsfeld said.

Some members of Congress said they believed more American troops should be sent to Iraq.

Among them was Senator John McCain, who said there needed to be a different mix of forces – more linguists, Special Forces and civil affairs units – to deal with escalating violence while also preparing to return political power to Iraqi civilian authorities.

Senator Joe Lieberman, a Democrat, also joined the call for more troops.

“Our troops on the ground in Iraq now are too few in number to battle the insurgents and establish the civil order needed to ensure Iraq does not descend into civil war,” Lieberman said.

Democratic Senator Robert Byrd, the Senate’s senior member and a fierce critic of the war, said he heard “echoes of Vietnam” in the talk of increasing US forces in Iraq.

In response, Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican, paraphrased Ho Chi Minh, noting that the North Vietnamese leader said the Vietnam War was won by dividing the American public, not on the battlefield.

“We must win,” Smith said. “We must not have the will of the American people broken by the naysayers.”