Pentagon announces 20,000 troop rotation for Iraq

[Barrett808]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Defense Department said on Tuesday another 20,000 Army soldiers and Marines will be sent to Iraq for rotation duty, with some tours scheduled to extend into early 2009.

The new deployment of 17,000 Marines and 3,000 Army soldiers is part of a routine troop rotation separate from U.S. President George W. Bush's surge strategy to stabilize Baghdad with extra forces, said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman.

Bush's surge boosted the U.S. force level in Iraq to 20 combat brigades in June. But Whitman said the new deployment of three Marine units and one Army unit would maintain an underlying base of 15 brigades that existed before the surge.

All told, the surge has temporarily added 30,000 U.S. troops and brought total U.S. forces to about 159,000.

"These rotations ... are not in any way associated with the current surge," Whitman told reporters.

"These forces have been identified to replace units and forces that would be coming out of Iraq," he said.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070731/us_nm/iraq_usa_troops_dc

[soothsayer]

1. the surge is getting bigger