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US not sure of additional foreign troops for Iraq: Rumsfeld
Washington, Sept 15: Even if a satisfactory UN resolution emerges on Iraq as a result of current discussions, the US may or may not get any additional troops for Iraq, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.
Washington, Sept 15: Even if a satisfactory UN
resolution emerges on Iraq as a result of current discussions,
the US may or may not get any additional troops for Iraq,
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.
"Those prospects seem to be waning. Where are the
international troops going to be coming from, and at the end
of that are we still looking at a picture of really a force
that's 80 percent American anyway?
"What we have now is, for the sake of argument,
120,000-130,000 Americans, and 20,000 or 25,000 international
forces, the British, the polish division, and the like,"
Rumsfeld said when questioned on a television network about
strength of international force in Iraq.
The polish division has 17 countries involved in it. And we have 56,000 Iraqis assisting with security. The Iraqi number is the one that's going up. If there is another UN resolution my guess is the most we could hope to get for, by way of additional international troops, would be something between 0 and 10,000 or 15,000, one division, Rumsfeld told TV.
He said India "basically went south and said it wasn't going to be providing a significant number of troops. Your people at the pentagon had hoped there would be Indian troops, had hoped there would be Pakistani troops, had hoped there would be Turkish troops."
The polish division has 17 countries involved in it. And we have 56,000 Iraqis assisting with security. The Iraqi number is the one that's going up. If there is another UN resolution my guess is the most we could hope to get for, by way of additional international troops, would be something between 0 and 10,000 or 15,000, one division, Rumsfeld told TV.
He said India "basically went south and said it wasn't going to be providing a significant number of troops. Your people at the pentagon had hoped there would be Indian troops, had hoped there would be Pakistani troops, had hoped there would be Turkish troops."
He said the international forces would in any case be
a smaller fraction than ours. On the other hand, what's
growing is the Iraqi contribution and that's terribly
important.
Bureau Report