The U.S. military has announced that they will be sending 700 additional soldiers to Iraq in order to hold off the ongoing sectarian violence in that country.
The new soldiers, who will be repositioned from their base in Kuwait, will help provide extra security during a Shi'ite pilgrimage holiday to take place later this month. Other U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces will also be repositioned to protect pilgrims heading to holy sites in Najaf and Karbala.
The new troops may remain in Iraq for as little as 30 days according to published reports. President Bush had said that U.S. troop numbers in Iraq would start going down after last December's elections but a rise in sectarian violence since a February 22 attack on a Shi'ite holy site eliminated that possibility. Many experts fear that the sectarian violence has left Iraq on the brink of civil war.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan denied any knowledge of the 700 additional troops. He told reporters on Wednesday, 'The situation in Iraq remains a serious one and a tense one, and it's important that Iraqi leaders continue to move forward on forming a government of national unity that represents all Iraqis. Those discussions are ongoing. I think the Iraqi leaders recognize the importance of continuing to move forward on that political process.'
On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said, 'General Casey may decide he wants to bulk up slightly for the pilgrimage. And we're continuing to pull troops down. And we're continuing to shift our weight, as we've said, between the combat patrol aspects of it, over to the training and the equipping and providing the enablers.' General Casey is the top U.S. commander in Iraq.
The additional troops are a mechanized infantry battalion from the 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division. Officials would not say how long they would remain in Iraq but the fact that they have been sent in to Iraq indicates that Iraqi security forces are not able to control the ongoing violence in that country.
