Commanders leery of increasing troops

U.S. commanders related their concerns to the new secretary of defense.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Defense Secretary Robert Gates found American commanders wary of a proposal to rush more U.S. troops to Iraq as he visited the war-ravaged country Wednesday.
President Bush is considering that idea and others in his search for a fresh path in a 31/2-plus-year war that has no end in sight and has lost the support of the American public.
On just his third day in charge of the Pentagon, Gates made the unannounced trip with the administration under intense pressure to forge a new strategy -- and just hours after the president conceded, for the first time, that the U.S. is not winning the conflict.
After meeting with top U.S. generals at Camp Victory, Gates acknowledged concerns that rushing thousands more American troops to the battlefront could allow the Iraqis to slow their effort to take control of the country. He said no decisions have been made.
"It's clearly a consideration," Gates said of how an infusion of American troops might affect Iraqi leaders. "I think that the commanders out here have expressed a concern about that."
Needs specific reason
Gen. George Casey, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and one of several generals who met with Gates, said he supports boosting troop levels only when there is a specific purpose for their deployment. Other military leaders have expressed uncertainty over the purpose and results of injecting more troops.
"I'm not necessarily opposed to the idea, but what I want to see happen is when, if we do bring more American troops here, they help us progress to our strategic objectives," Casey told reporters during a news conference with Gates and other military leaders.
Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Middle East, said the military is "looking at every possible thing that might influence the situation to make Baghdad in particular more secure."
Echoing some of his commanders' questions about a troop surge, Bush said, "In order to do so, there must be a specific mission that can be accomplished with more troops."
Bush is considering choices ranging from a short-term increase of thousands of troops to bring the escalating violence in Baghdad and Anbar province under control, to removing combat U.S. forces and accelerating the training and equipping of Iraqi security forces. More than one-third of the U.S. troops in Iraq are combat forces.
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