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Senator, general focus on U.S. troops

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published December 15, 2006

BAGHDAD - The issue of U.S. troop levels echoed from Baghdad to Washington on Thursday, with Sen. John McCain calling for the deployment of 15,000 to 30,000 more troops to Iraq, and the Army's top general saying his force "will break" without thousands more active duty soldiers and greater use of the reserves.

McCain, R-Ariz., who visited Baghdad with five other U.S. lawmakers, said he realizes that few Americans favor deploying more U.S. troops to Iraq. But if American troops leave Iraq in chaos, al-Qaida and others would seek to take advantage of it and the United States would face "greater challenges than those that we now face here in Iraq," he said.

McCain's position puts him at odds with the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, which recommended withdrawing substantial number of U.S. troops over the coming year. The U.S. military has about 140,000 troops in Iraq.

McCain visited Baghdad with Sens. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn.; Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.; Susan Collins, R-Maine; and John Thune, R-S.D.; and Rep. Mark Kirk, R-Ill.

Lieberman said the lawmakers urged Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to break his ties with radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and disarm the Shiite leader's Mahdi Army militia.

In Washington, the Army's top general, Peter J. Schoomaker, told reporters that operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere in the war on terrorism have put a strain put on the Army. He said he wants to enlarge his half-million-member force beyond the 30,000 troops added in recent years. He did not give an exact number, but noted about 6,000 to 7,000 soldiers could be added per year.

Officials also need greater authority to tap into the National Guard and Reserve, Schoomaker told a commission studying possible changes in those two forces.

The latest

Gunmen in military uniforms kidnapped as many as 70 shopkeepers and bystanders from a commercial area in central Baghdad Thursday in what was apparently an attack against Sunnis; at least 25 were later released, police said.

At least 74 people were killed or found dead in Iraq on Thursday, including 65 bullet-riddled bodies bearing signs of torture.

[Last modified December 15, 2006, 00:58:16]