Pentagon Urges Delay in U.S. Troop Reductions in Iraq

Senior military commanders have presented the Bush administration with proposals to put off any plans for further reductions of troops in Iraq at least until the end of summer. At the same time, the proposals would limit new deployments to 12 months, instead of 15 months now, military and administration officials said Friday.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates met for a second day in closed sessions with the Pentagon’s top officers to outline recommendations to be presented to President Bush on Wednesday.

Mr. Bush is to discuss the proposals with the senior commander in Iraq, Gen. David H. Petraeus, in a videoconference on Monday and is expected to make a decision about any additional withdrawals before he leaves on April 1 for a five-day trip to Ukraine, Romania and Croatia, the officials said.

Last September, facing intense pressure from Democrats and even some Republicans in Congress, Mr. Bush announced that he would withdraw five combat brigades and two Marine battalions by July. Those reductions, not yet complete, would effectively return the number of troops in Iraq to roughly 140,000, a level slightly higher than before Mr. Bush ordered the buildup that became known as the “surge.”

Mr. Gates’s spokesman, Geoff Morrell, said four more departing brigades, each with more than 3,000 troops, had yet to leave Iraq, making it difficult to assess the effect on security in Iraq of the reduction of troops ordered last fall. There are now 155,000 American troops in Iraq, down from a peak of 170,000 last fall.

“A pause of some duration is worthwhile to figure out the impact of the rapid withdrawal of the last four surge brigades,” Mr. Morrell said. “So losing those four brigades over the course of four months is going to require some assessment of the impact that has.” He declined to discuss in detail the proposals that Mr. Gates heard in the meetings in recent days.

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