Telegraph | News | America to cut troops in Iraq by one fifth
The United States military is to cut troop strengths in Iraq by a fifth, from 130,000 to 105,000, as commanders begin the largest rotation of men and equipment in American history.
The reduction in overall troop numbers did not signal a lessening of US military might in the country, a senior military officer said. Instead, Pentagon chiefs would be consolidating assets scattered across the Gulf inside Iraq itself.
Heavy infantry and Marines will replace armoured units that have until now provided the firepower to take on a conventionally armed enemy.
'While there may be a reduction in the numbers, it's not a reduction in our capability,' the officer said.
The next few months before the transfer of sovereignty planned for July 1 will see a huge influx of Marines and part-time soldiers from the reserves and National Guard units, equipped with lightly armoured infantry vehicles.
The rotation of that many men and machines is the largest such movement any US military commander can recall, dwarfing even the troop rotations of the Second World War.
The rotation will also be the largest and most perilous deployment faced by reservists - weekend warriors from America's heartlands - since the Vietnam War.
The driving philosophy is to bring more sensitivity and responsiveness to the problem of fighting the insurgency centred on the Sunni triangle near Baghdad, while winning hearts and minds elsewhere in the country, as the interim government takes charge.
To that end, the US military presence in Baghdad itself is about to be dramatically scaled back.
The expectation is that after 'Operation Iraqi Freedom 2' is in place, the coalition forces will be better poised to fight a series of smaller, sharper engagements with elusive attackers.
Marine commanders have already vowed to show more subtlety than the regular army units they will replace, publicly disparaging such tactics as calling in air strikes.
Reserve units, though usually older, less fit and less experienced than regular troops, are thought to bring other skills to bear from their civilian lives, where many are policemen, teachers, firemen and the like.
Unspoken, behind all the military changes, is the political need to avoid US casualties - which crossed the 500 dead mark (including combat casualties and accidents) at the weekend.
Senior officials planning George W Bush's re-election campaign admit that US death tolls remain the yardstick by which ordinary Americans judge the success of events in Iraq."
The United States military is to cut troop strengths in Iraq by a fifth, from 130,000 to 105,000, as commanders begin the largest rotation of men and equipment in American history.
The reduction in overall troop numbers did not signal a lessening of US military might in the country, a senior military officer said. Instead, Pentagon chiefs would be consolidating assets scattered across the Gulf inside Iraq itself.
Heavy infantry and Marines will replace armoured units that have until now provided the firepower to take on a conventionally armed enemy.
'While there may be a reduction in the numbers, it's not a reduction in our capability,' the officer said.
The next few months before the transfer of sovereignty planned for July 1 will see a huge influx of Marines and part-time soldiers from the reserves and National Guard units, equipped with lightly armoured infantry vehicles.
The rotation of that many men and machines is the largest such movement any US military commander can recall, dwarfing even the troop rotations of the Second World War.
The rotation will also be the largest and most perilous deployment faced by reservists - weekend warriors from America's heartlands - since the Vietnam War.
The driving philosophy is to bring more sensitivity and responsiveness to the problem of fighting the insurgency centred on the Sunni triangle near Baghdad, while winning hearts and minds elsewhere in the country, as the interim government takes charge.
To that end, the US military presence in Baghdad itself is about to be dramatically scaled back.
The expectation is that after 'Operation Iraqi Freedom 2' is in place, the coalition forces will be better poised to fight a series of smaller, sharper engagements with elusive attackers.
Marine commanders have already vowed to show more subtlety than the regular army units they will replace, publicly disparaging such tactics as calling in air strikes.
Reserve units, though usually older, less fit and less experienced than regular troops, are thought to bring other skills to bear from their civilian lives, where many are policemen, teachers, firemen and the like.
Unspoken, behind all the military changes, is the political need to avoid US casualties - which crossed the 500 dead mark (including combat casualties and accidents) at the weekend.
Senior officials planning George W Bush's re-election campaign admit that US death tolls remain the yardstick by which ordinary Americans judge the success of events in Iraq."
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