Army makes plans to keep current troop levels in Iraq through 2010

WASHINGTON — The Army is making plans to keep its current troop levels in Iraq through 2010 if they're needed, the Army's chief of staff said Wednesday.

But Gen. Peter Schoomaker cautioned against putting too much emphasis on the Army's plans, saying that conditions in Iraq would dictate force levels. He said it would be easier to pull troops "off the table" or shorten their tours in Iraq rather than to add more forces later.

"This is the way you'd expect us to operate," Schoomaker told reporters. "This is not a prediction that things are going poorly or better; it's just that I have to have enough ammo in the magazine [so] that I can continue to shoot as long as they want us to shoot."

About 142,000 U.S. troops are in Iraq — 120,000 from the Army. Schoomaker said Army troop-rotation plans for 2008-2010 call for keeping the current level of 15 combat brigades in the country.

But the general said that to sustain current levels, the Army would have to continue to rely on the National Guard and the Army Reserve. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Schoomaker's remarks did not mean U.S. troops would be in Iraq in 2010.

"Schoomaker did not, of course, say anything like that, and it's unfortunate that stories go out mischaracterizing what people say," he said at a Pentagon press conference.

At a Pentagon news conference, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, said that as recently as July he had expected to be able to recommend a substantial reduction in U.S. forces by now. But that plan was dropped as sectarian violence in Baghdad escalated.

Appearing with Casey, Rumsfeld said he and other senior Pentagon officials are still studying how the military might keep up the current pace of Iraq deployments without overtaxing the Army and Marine Corps, which have borne the brunt of the conflict. Rumsfeld said one option is to make more use of the Air Force and Navy for work that normally is done by soldiers and Marines.

At his news conference, Rumsfeld was asked whether he bears responsibility for what has gone wrong in Iraq or if the military commanders there are to blame.

"Of course I bear responsibility," he replied in apparent exasperation. "My Lord, I'm secretary of defense. Write it down."