WASHINGTON — A top U.S. Army officer says the Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012.
Gen. George Casey, Army chief of staff, said Tuesday that the world remains dangerous and unpredictable and the Pentagon must plan for extended U.S. combat and stability operations in two wars.
Casey said, “Global trends are pushing in the wrong direction.”
He spoke at an invitation-only briefing to a dozen journalists and policy analysts from Washington-based think-tanks. He said his planning envisions combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade as part of a sustained U.S. commitment to fighting extremism and terrorism in the Middle East.
In Iraq, meanwhile, a roadside bomb blasted a U.S. convoy west of Baghdad. Three Americans were killed, including a State Department reconstruction official who had been prominent in Illinois politics, U.S. authorities said Tuesday.
The attack occurred Monday on the eastern outskirts of Fallujah, which used to be the main stronghold of Sunni insurgents until U.S. troops overran the city in November 2004, in the bitterest urban fighting of the Iraq war.
Since then, Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad in Anbar province, has been among the most heavily guarded cities in Iraq. A fatal attack in such an area illustrates the resilience of the insurgents despite major setbacks on the battlefield during the past two years.
Those killed in the blast included Terrence Barnich, 56, deputy director of the State Department office that oversees U.S. reconstruction projects in Iraq, as well as a U.S. soldier and a Defense Department employee working for the U.S. Embassy. Barnich was the only one identified.
