US News
Pentagon: 35,000 More Troops to Iraq
CBN News
May 9, 2007
CBNNews.com - More than 35,000 Army troops were told by the Pentagon on Tuesday to prepare for a possible deployment to Iraq, which could come as early as the fall.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has signed deployment orders that would free up Army commanders to keep their elevated number of soldiers through year's end.
To counter increased Iraqi violence, 30,000 more soldiers were sent mostly to the Baghdad area of Iraq.
Gates' new orders do not necessarily indicate that the military has resolved to keep the number of troops in Iraq raised through December, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.
Whitman also disclosed that the Pentagon "has been very clear that a decision about the duration of the surge will depend on conditions on the ground."
The troop count in Iraq now stands at approximately 146,000.
A $124.2 billion bill written to order troops back home was vetoed by President Bush last week, and the recent order preparing to deploy more troops to Iraq could put even more pressure on the commander in chief to pull troops out of the war-torn nation.
More than 50 percent of Americans were opposed to Bush's veto, according to a recent poll conducted by CNN-Opinion Research Corp.
Sources: AP, CNN
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