More U.S. Troops Moving Into Iraq
March was supposed to be the month when the U.S. commander in Iraq made a recommendation to pull more troops out of Iraq. Instead, he has asked for more troops to be sent in, reports CBS News National Security correspondent David Martin.
With 133,000 American troops already in Iraq, an armored battalion of about 700 soldiers kept on standby in Kuwait is beginning to move north toward Baghdad. U.S. officials say Gen. George Casey asked for more troops because of a convergence of events, and danger, surrounding the third anniversary of the American invasion.
"I think if the American people think this is a switch in a different direction they are sadly mistaken," commented CBS News Military Analyst Retired Col. Mitch Mitchell. "If you start seeing troops deployed from the United States to Iraq, then you have cause for concern. Then it looks like things are going bad. But just to bring a strategic reserve up closer to the front doesn't mean anything."
On Thursday the Iraqi parliament convenes in an attempt to form a new government which the top American commander for the Middle East says is critical to stopping the spread of sectarian violence into civil war.
"One of the most important things that needs to happen is an Iraqi government of national unity to emerge there. That will help," Gen. John Abizaid says.
Sunday marks the beginning of a Shiite pilgrimage that will bring thousands of believers to the holy city of Karbala and with them the potential for violence on an even larger scale.
Pentagon officials say they expect the extra troops to remain in Iraq about a month. So it's a small increase and it's supposed to be temporary, but putting troops in instead of taking them out does not sound like progress, Martin says.
In other recent developments:
Meanwhile, on Wednesday eleven people, most of them women and children, were killed when U.S. forces bombed a house during a raid north of Baghdad early Wednesday, police and relatives said.
The U.S. military acknowledged the raid near Balad and said it captured one insurgent. But the military said only four people were killed, a man, two women and a child.
Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, in nearby Samarra, said American warplanes and armor were used in the strike, which flattened the house and killed the 11 people inside.
The U.S. military said it was targeting and captured an individual suspected of supporting foreign fighters for the al Qaeda in Iraq terror network.
Bomb blasts killed at least four more people and injured dozens Wednesday in Baghdad and north of the capital.
The Iraqi army hit back Wednesday, arresting about 20 suspects and confiscating numerous weapons in a dawn raid in a nearby farming area, said Lt. Col. Tarik Muhei.
Deepening sectarian violence in Iraq has produced at least 87 more victims in recent days, men shot to death execution-style. Twenty-nine of the bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single grave Tuesday in a Shiite neighborhood of east Baghdad.
Underlining the vast unease in the capital, Interior Ministry officials on Tuesday announced another driving ban, this one from 8 p.m. Wednesday to 4 p.m. Thursday to protect against car and suicide bombs while the Iraqi parliament meets for the first session since the Dec. 15 election.
After the driving ban was announced, the Cabinet said that Thursday would be a holiday in the capital, presumably because residents would not be able to get to work.
Scores of frightened Shiite families have fled predominantly Sunni parts of Baghdad in recent weeks, some of them at gunpoint. More than 100 families arrived between Monday and Tuesday alone in Wasit province, said an official with the provisional migration directorate.