More troops headed to Ramadi

NY Times:

The top American commander in Iraq has decided to move reserve troops now deployed in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar Province in western Iraq to help quell a rise in insurgent attacks there, two American officials said Monday.

Although some soldiers from the 3,500-member brigade in Kuwait have moved into Iraq in recent months, Gen. George W. Casey Jr. has decided to send in the remainder of the unit after consultations with Iraqi officials in recent days, the officials said.

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The brigade comes from the Army's First Armored Division, which has been deployed in Kuwait for months as a reserve in case conditions in Iraq deteriorated. One official said the additional troops would be deployed at multiple hotspots in Anbar Province, a Sunni insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

At least some of the troops are likely to be sent to the city of Ramadi, where a Pennsylvania National Guard brigade that has been trying to quell a surge in violence in the city along with Marine units is scheduled to rotate out this month.

The deployment was first reported in the Tuesday issue of The Washington Post.

Several senior officers in Ramadi have said in recent interviews that they are engaged in almost daily combat and that Al Qaeda has been recruiting local residents to carry out assassinations of local sheiks and officials who cooperate with American forces.

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It has been obvious to me that more troops were needed in Ramadi for some time. There have been daily attacks on Marine and Iraqi defense forces who are guarding local officials. While these attacks have been repulsed, there appears to be insufficient forces to sweep the enemy out of the area as was done in Tal Afar and other cities in western Anbar.