The U.S. military’s troop surge in Iraq continues to increase.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday he has approved a request from the new Iraq commander, Gen. David Petraeus, to put an extra 2,200 military police into the country to handle an expected surge in insurgent detainees.
The added MPs come in addition to the 21,500 combat Marines and soldiers being sent to Iraq as part of a new strategy President Bush announced on Jan. 10. The Pentagon later said those warriors need 2,400 support personnel.
The surge is part of a joint U.S.-Iraq counterinsurgency designed to quell rampant violence in greater Baghdad highlighted by Shiite death squads and Sunni suicide bombers.
Sunni insurgents, and al-Qaida in Iraq, stepped up bombings this week in attacks aimed at defeating the allies’ latest bid to control Baghdad’s violent neighborhoods.
“I think that we expected that there would be, in the short term, an increase in violence as the surge began to make itself felt, as the Baghdad security plan began to be implemented,” Gates told reporters at the Pentagon.
After two suicide bombings that killed more 100 Iraqis this week, Gates said, “There are some very preliminary positive signs of things going on. No one wants to get too enthusiastic about it at this point.”
Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Sunni-Shiite sectarian violence has dipped slightly since the crackdown began, but suicide bombings increased.
As military commissions move closer to putting al-Qaida suspects on trial at Guantanamo Bay, Gates gave his views on why the prison needs to remain open.
“I think that Guantanamo has become symbolic, whether we like it or not, for many around the world,” he said. “The problem is that we have a certain number of the detainees there who often by their own confessions are people who, if released, would come back to attack the United States. There are others that we would like to turn back to their home countries, but their home countries don’t want them.”
