Pentagon announces 2009 US deployments to Iraq

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Six Army brigades, a National Guard unit and three military headquarters have been ordered to Iraq next year in a move that would allow the US to keep the number of troops largely steady there through much of 2009. The planned deployments involve about 26,000 troops and would maintain 14 combat brigades in Iraq from about February to early autumn. But the decisions do not rule out potential changes as military leaders assess the security there and eye more troop withdrawals. Even as violence in Iraq has plunged in the past year, cautious Pentagon leaders have resisted insistent public and congressional calls for more rapid and hefty troop pullouts. Instead, top commanders have continued to insist the security situation remains fragile, and the improvements reversible. That assessment was reflected in a report sent to Congress Tuesday in which the Pentagon expressed concern in the turnover to Iraqi government control - beginning Wednesday - of tens of thousands of Sunni fighters who turned against al-Qaida with US support. About 100,000 of the fighters - many former insurgents - are now on the US payroll.