Bush has his work cut out for him in convincing a wary nation to support what his Democratic critics are already calling a desperate escalation of troops–with echoes of Vietnam. Nearly three-fourths of the country now disapproves of the way Bush is handling the war, with just 23 percent approving, a CBS News poll found last week. Nearly two-thirds–61 percent–are opposed to sending more troops, while just 36 percent favor an increase, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll released Tuesday shows.
Part of his challenge will be to convince the public that more troops can actually help turn around what looks increasingly to many analysts like a full-blown civil war pitting Sunnis against Shiites. As Bush prepares to make his case, questions abound.
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President Bush has said that as Iraqi troops stand up, Americans will stand down. How have Iraqi forces grown and why are U.S. force levels rising instead of falling?
The number of trained and equipped Iraqi security forces has grown from 174,000 in July 2005 to its current level of 323,000. Iraqi army troops took the lead in about 90 counterinsurgency operations last October, up from just 21 in March, 2005, according to State Department and Pentagon reports.
Of the 18 Iraqi provinces, three are under Iraqi security control. The Pentagon hopes that number will rise to 8 by sometime next month.
Meanwhile, however, insurgent attacks have risen. Insurgents staged more than 5,500 separate attacks during just the month of October, the bloodiest month since Bush launched the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March, 2003.
Where will the additional troops go and what is their mission?
Bush has recently defined U.S. success in Iraq as creating a democratic country that is stable and secure. The most urgent imperative for that to come true is to decrease the violence in Baghdad. Private analysts have suggested that could be accomplished by sending an additional 15,000 U.S. troops to the capital and mounting assertive combat operations against insurgents there using a mix of U.S. and Iraqi forces. Other U.S. forces–perhaps 5,000 or so–are needed in Anbar province west of Baghdad, where Sunni militia groups and Al Qaeda operatives are concentrated.
How big a role will be played by the National Guard and Reserves?
Reserve forces would almost certainly be tapped to provide intelligence, engineering and other support functions. National Guard infantry forces could be used, but training requirements mean that, in the short term at least, they would probably play only a small role in the initial surge.
How much have American taxpayers spent on Iraq and how much would an increase in troop levels add to that cost?
As of Oct. 1 of 2006, the Pentagon had reported spending $257.5 billion on military operations in Iraq. In addition, about $29 billion had been spent for reconstruction and stabilization efforts, according to a report issued Tuesday by the Government Accounting Office. The costs of the war have risen steadily, from $38.8 billion in 2003 to $83.4 billion in 2006.
It isn’t known exactly how much a troop increase would cost. Last year, with anywhere between 130,000 and 160,000 U.S. troops in Iraq at any given time, the Pentagon reported spending $14.1 billion on pay for troops in Iraq, up from $8 billion in 2003. That does not include the $50 billion the Pentagon spent last year to house, feed, equip and transport those troops.